RE: pattern matching: why does the following code evaluate true? (and how do i fix it?)

[Adam]

Greedy Pattern Matching.
The . matches anything (and more importantly - everything.) {Except \n}

UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that I am only partly correct. The dot does in fact match anything {Except \n} but it does not behave in a greedy manner. Rather, Perl is saying that the substring ($key2) is found in the other string ($key)... which is ok. I apologize if I confused anyone.

[takshaka]

Well, /^$key2$/, wouldn't match--there's nothing greedy in that regex. But since the pattern isn't anchored it looks for the $key2 pattern anywhere in $key.

If you're looking for literal periods, do one of the following:

$key2 = "INITIAL\.LASTNAME,INITIAL2\.LASTNAME2,\.";

$key2 = quotemeta "INITIAL.LASTNAME,INITIAL2.LASTNAME2,.";

$key =~ /\Q$key2/