$_->{Sub_URL} = 'suburl';
print qq{echo $_->{Sub_URL} \(?i\)Podcast ARGS\n};
system qq{echo $_->{Sub_URL} \\(?i\\)Podcast ARGS};
#                            ~~   ~~
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thanks. It works exactly as needed.

It may work, but I disagree that it is a good solution: it will blow up when $_->{Sub_URL} contains shell metacharacters, and is a security hole if that variable contains any user input.

See Calling External Commands More Safely. In this case I would recommend systemx from IPC::System::Simple, or at the very least the multi-argument system (as shown in other replies) with error checking (nobody showed this, but for an example see the first link).

sigh

To convert a string to a shell literal, you can use String::ShellQuote's shell_quote. (If you're building a Windows command, see Win32::ShellQuote.)

use String::ShellQuote qw( shell_quote );

my $cmd = shell_quote( "prog", $_->{Sub_URL}, "(?i)Podcast", @args );
system( $cmd );
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But why invoke a shell at all?

my @cmd = ( "prog", $_->{Sub_URL}, "(?i)Podcast", @args );
system( { $cmd[0] } @cmd );
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(Ignore afoken's disparagement of shell_quote. He thinks the fact that unix and Windows are different is a defect of the module.)

FYI - I liked your answer ikegami. Shell:Quote module looked to be very helpful, but it does not exist in CPAN. However, I did find the following modules:

ShellQuote::Any - Escape strings for the shell on Linux, UNIX or MSWin32
Win32::ShellQuote - Quote argument lists for Win32
ShellQuote::Any::Tiny - Escape string for the Unix/Windows shell

"It's not how hard you work, it's how much you get done."

Sorry, I meant String::ShellQuote. Fixed.

• The problem of "the" default shell explains what goes wrong (quoting in a default shell), and how to fix it (passing an array of arguments to the executable instead of passing a string to a default shell)
• Problems with String::ShellQuote explains why String::ShellQuote is not the universal solution it promises to be

Alexander