c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my $s = 'first|second|third'; my @ra = split '[|]', $s; dd \@ra; " ["first", "second", "third"] #### c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my $s = qq{\|}; print qq{:$s:}; ;; my $t = qq{\\|}; print qq{:$t:}; " :|: :\|: