Matching parenthesis in a string

[ciamack]

Hi
I have a script where I need to match strings with parenthesis to string items in an array. here is a part of it:

---

@array = ("text1_(Right):662:19990913:662:19990913:1",
"text2(Right):8000:20020116:8000:20020116:1",
"text3:6800:20021015:6900:20021014:1");

$Symbol= "text1_(Right)";

foreach $item (@array){
      if ($item =~ m/$Symbol/i) {
       print "$item\n";
         }
}

---

If I try to match "(Right)" to items in the array, I'll get 2 matches but the way it is combined with some other text, even if the exact match exists in the array, as in the example, I don't get any results. There probably is something I ought to do, but I don't know what I am missing here.

I appreciate any help.
Thanks,
Ciamack

Edit by tye to add CODE tags and remove most BR tags

[zigdon]

Since ()s are metachars for a regexp, you're actually matching "text1_Right" - which doesn't exist in your example. What you'll have to do is escape the ()s in your string:

@array = ("text1_(Right):662:19990913:662:19990913:1",
"text2(Right):8000:20020116:8000:20020116:1",
"text3:6800:20021015:6900:20021014:1");

$Symbol= "text1_(Right)";

foreach $item (@array){
   if ($item =~ m/\Q$Symbol/i) {
    print "$item\n";
  } 
}

See perlop for the use of \Q

-- Dan

[Abigail-II]

If you want to do exact matching, probably the simplest is to use index(). Or to "quote meta" your search pattern, with either quotemeta or \Q .. \E.

Abigail

[John M. Dlugosz]

The easiest thing is to use \Q when interpolating the string into your regex operator.

But why does that work? It changes ( to \(, etc. You would write m/\(Right\)/ normally. When interpolating, it's confusing because the backslashes are used by both the quote and the regex, and parens are not special to quotes. You would have to get a backslash into the regex, and that would require escaping that out in the quote! $Symbol= "\\(Right\\)".