http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1019974

docdurdee has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Dearest Monks, I have a humble question: How do you match a variable containing a metacharacter that should be treated as a regular boring character? I'm processing some files (@foos) with dots in them. I want:
my @subfoos = grep{m/$var/} @foos;
I ended up with something awful:
my $regvar = $var; $regsol =~ s/\./___/g; my @subfoos = map {s/___/\./g; $_} grep{m/$regsol/} map{s/\./___/g; $_}@foos; }
is there a better way?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: matching a variable containing metacharacter treated as character
by choroba (Cardinal) on Feb 21, 2013 at 16:20 UTC
    Use \Q:
    grep /\Q$var/, @foos;
    See Escape sequences for details.
    لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ
      Thank you!
Re: matching a variable containing metacharacter treated as character
by Anonymous Monk on Feb 22, 2013 at 00:30 UTC