diff --git a/src/utils.py b/src/utils.py
index 0d9421e8f..fca8305af 100755
--- a/src/utils.py
+++ b/src/utils.py
@@ -262,7 +262,7 @@ def perlReToReplacer(s):
     else:
         return lambda s: r.sub(replace, s, 1)
 
-_perlVarSubstituteRe = re.compile(r'\$\{([^}]+)\}|\$(\S+)')
+_perlVarSubstituteRe = re.compile(r'\$\{([^}]+)\}|\$([a-zA-Z][a-zA-Z0-9]*)')
 def perlVariableSubstitute(vars, text):
     def replacer(m):
         (braced, unbraced) = m.groups()
diff --git a/test/test_utils.py b/test/test_utils.py
index 8b1e7f2f7..fecef0107 100644
--- a/test/test_utils.py
+++ b/test/test_utils.py
@@ -183,6 +183,22 @@ class UtilsTest(SupyTestCase):
         f = utils.perlReToReplacer('s/\b(\w+)\b/\1./g')
         self.assertEqual(f('foo bar baz'), 'foo. bar. baz.')
 
+    def testPerlVariableSubstitute(self):
+        f = utils.perlVariableSubstitute
+        vars = {'foo': 'bar', 'b a z': 'baz', 'b': 'c', 'i': 100,
+                'f': lambda: 'called'}
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '$foo'), 'bar')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '${foo}'), 'bar')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '$b'), 'c')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '${b}'), 'c')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '$i'), '100')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '${i}'), '100')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '$f'), 'called')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '${f}'), 'called')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '${b a z}'), 'baz')
+        self.assertEqual(f(vars, '$b:$i'), 'c:100')
+        
+                         
     def testFindBinaryInPath(self):
         if os.name == 'posix':
             self.assertEqual(None, utils.findBinaryInPath('asdfhjklasdfhjkl'))