Thanks for your input rminner. Adding the \Q and \E as you stated worked. I will try with quotemeta as well. I admit I could have done a better job in explaining the objective, I need to count the number of lines where the $constant variable appears in the file. For the points you mentioned under 'Other thoughts':
- I do use something like $FILE in the code but to make the code more easy on the eyes I simply inserted the code where the problem was occurring.
- Its a line counter script that I am converting from batch, and to keep things consistent for the users, I kept the same terminology. I do agree term could use a change.
- I am doing something else if $constant is empty/undef, that part is working properly so thought there is no sense in copying all of that.
Thanks Again!