I'm not sure what you trying to match, you say the user can enter either the literal string "/" or the regular expression /\/w+/ but then test for neither.

m|\x2f{1}?| is just an obscure way of sayingm|/| which is not the same thing as $fs eq "/". The g modifier seems unnecessary. The next test checks for input that doesn't match /\/w+/.

I will guess that you don't want to prune if the directory path has a '/' and do otherwise.

find_me( $fs, $fs =~ m|/| );

sub find_me {
    my @directory = shift;
    # play nicely with others
    local $File::Find::prune = shift;
    <snip>
}
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your guess is right, however saying m|/| matches / and /var.

/etc/skel$ perl -le '$foo=qq(/); print "YES" if $foo =~ m|/|;'
YES
/etc/skel$ perl -le '$foo=qq(/var); print "YES" if $foo =~ m|/|;'
YES
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And yet I need my code to match "/" independently and "/var" independently.

print "enter text\n";
chomp(my $fs = <>);

if ( $fs !~ m|/\w+| ) {  ##-- only look for / --##
   print "YES\t$fs\nfirst test\n";
}
elsif ( $fs =~ m|/\w+| ) {  ##-- only look for /words --##
   print "YES\t$fs\nsecond test\n";
}
/etc/skel$
/etc/skel$ perl test1
enter text
/var
YES     /var
second test
/etc/skel$ perl test1
enter text
/
YES     /
first test
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thus I use the code, but can you explain how I will use something similar to find_me( $fs, $fs =~ m|/| );

if ( $fs !~ m|/\w+| ) {  ##-- only look for / --##
    find_me($File::Find::prune = 1); ##-- false, do not prune past / -
+-##
    find_me;
}
elsif ( $fs =~ m|/\w+| ) {  ##-- only look for /words --##
    find_me($File::Find::prune = 0); ## true, prune dir tree   --##
}

sub find_me {

my @directory = ($fs) ;
   use constant MAX_SIZE => (25*1024*1024) ;
   use constant DIVISOR  => (1024) ;
   my ( $wanted, $list ) = find_by_min_size ( MAX_SIZE ) ;
   File::Find::find ( { wanted => $wanted, }, @directory ) ;

   my ( @sorted_large_files, @large_files ) ;
   @large_files = $list->() ;
<snip>

}
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There are three possible actions

• do not process
• process and prune
• process and do not prune

It seems to me that your cases are

• / root directory, do not prune
• /var /usr/local an absolute path where the top level directory has a name beginning with a-z A-Z or _, prune
• every thing else e.g. .ssh /.kde tmp ../etc /+share, ignore

if ( $fs eq '/' ) { # only if the root directory
    my_find( $fs, 0 );
}
elsif ( $fs =~ m|^/\w+| ) { # matches /var
    my_find( $fs, 1 );
}
else {
    # everything else which we ignore
    # /.ssh
    # tmp
    # working/data
    # /-etc
}

sub find_me {
    my @directory = shift;
    # play nicely with others
    local $File::Find::prune = shift;
    <snip>
}
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If these are not the cases that you want to match I strongly suggest that you think clearly about what you are trying to match. Are relative paths allowed? How about the tmp directory in your current working directory (no / in the path)? Is there a need to restrict directory names to beginning with word characters?

Note that I pass parameters to find_me() rather rely on global variables, find_me() can now be used from elsewhere in the program. Also I localize $File::Find::prune so that changes to File::Find within find_me() don't leak out into the rest of your program. If you don't do that you will have to remember to explicit reset $File::Find::prune before you use any Find::File function elsewhere (or spend hours debugging;).

Maybe I'm failing to see a difficult thing here, but couldn't you just do:

# Sticking with pattern matching
find_me( $fs, $fs =~ m|^/$| );

# Simpler
find_me( $fs, $fs eq '/' );

# Simpler Still
$File::Find::prune = $fs ne '/';
find_me;
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