use warnings; use strict; $| = 1; print "Input regexp: "; my $user_input = ; my $regex = eval { qr/$user_input/x }; if ($@) { print "Your regexp would not compile. The error was:\n$@\n"; exit 1; } my $string = 'abcdef'; print "$string - " . (($string =~ $regex) ? "matches\n" : "no match found\n");