<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252"?>
<node id="1006930" title="&quot;ee&quot; in Regular Expression: version issue?" created="2012-12-03 14:02:35" updated="2012-12-03 14:02:35">
<type id="115">
perlquestion</type>
<author id="961">
Anonymous Monk</author>
<data>
<field name="doctext">
&lt;p&gt; Hi all! At work, I'm writing a script that uses a configuration file of strings that are converted to regular expressions. I have my script working for matching, but it breaks for substitution. For example, the string to match to might look like &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;code&gt; $lhs = (\d*?)-(.*?)-(.*) &lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;and the right hand side (for substitution looks like:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;code&gt; $rhs = $1$2$3 &lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I'm using the code likes this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;code&gt; $var =~ s/$lhs/$rhs/ee &lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If I run it like above, I get an error message: &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;code&gt;
Scalar found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "$1$"
        (Missing operator before $?)
Scalar found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "$2$"
        (Missing operator before $?)
&lt;/code&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
I've also tried with a single "e" or no "e"s at all, and just get this for the value of $var: $1$2$3
&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
For the test case that I'm passing into this regular expression, it is matching properly and all the capture groups are capturing ( I had it print out the values of $1, $2, $3 and it gave me the expected output correctly )
&lt;p&gt;
This is running on a server at work that has Perl v5.8.8 installed on it. Unfortunately, the decision to upgrade it is not mine, although discussions have been started once I raised it as a concern. Is the age of this Perl install the problem, or am I missing something else? &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;
Thanks in advance for any assistance!
&lt;/p&gt;

</field>
<field name="reputation">
2</field>
</data>
</node>
