Let's say that I have something like this:

$foo = 'this is a test';

if ($foo) {
 $_ = $foo;
 s/ a / a bad /g;
}

elsif ($bar) {
 $_ = $bar;
 s/ a / a good /g;
}

else { $_ = false; }

I know that if it there were no conditions and I only had $foo then I could do this:

($_ = $foo) =~ s/ a / a bad /g;

And if it wasn't for the regexes then I could do this:

$_ = $foo //
 $bar //
 false;

The question is, is there a way to shorten this to a one liner and eliminate the conditions AND regexes?

I tried these, but both just return true or false:

# Test 1, tried with and without ( )
$_ = ($foo =~ s/ a / a bad /g) //
 ($bar =~ s/ a / a good /g) //
 false;

# Test 2
$_ = $foo ?
 $foo =~ s/ a / a bad /g :
 $bar =~ s/ a / a good /g;

I know, I know... readability! LOL But this is mainly for my own education.