http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1067373


in reply to Need Speed:Search Tab-delimited File for pairs of names

Addressing the question of literal matching: note that regex allow you to safely embed variables using \Q and \E, e.g.

my @pats = map qr/\Q$_\E/, @ARGV;
The above prepares @ARGV as patterns, disabling interpretation of meta-characters.