in reply to Re: Scripts work when run individually but not when run as one compiled script
in thread Scripts work when run individually but not when run as one compiled script

In the s/// they do need to be forward slashes, not backslashes, which have a different meaning.

Of course the canonical form is s/pattern/replacement/, but the delimiters can be any other character except whitespace, even control characters(but not ^L or ^M := \r, ^J := \n which count as whitespace, too; maybe there are other exceptions), as well as balanced parens, braces and brackets: 

qwurx [shmem] ~> perl -le '$_="foe"; s\oe\riend\; print'
friend
qwurx [shmem] ~> perl -le '$_="foe"; s^Toe^Triend^T; print'
friend
qwurx [shmem] ~> perl -le '$_="foe"; s^Woe^Wriend^W; print'
friend
# even this works
qwurx [shmem] ~> perl -le '$_="foe"; s$oe$riend$; print'
friend

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Using a meta-character or a sigil as delimiter makes it unusable as such in the regex, which is why we generally don't do that.

Note that e.g. the ^T is the terminal's representation of "\ct" entered via <Ctrl>-v<Ctrl>-t in the shell on a Linux box.

perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'

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Re^3: Scripts work when run individually but not when run as one compiled script
by Laurent_R (Canon) on Jan 19, 2016 at 23:09 UTC
    but the delimiters can be any other character except whitespace
    You probably meant it implicitly, but delimiters cannot be word characters (or alphanumerical characters).
[reply]

      You probably meant it implicitly, but delimiters cannot be word characters (or alphanumerical characters).

      Heheh, try it 

      $ perl -le" $_ = q\e\; s OeOEO; print "
E

$ perl -MO=Deparse -le" $_ = q\e\; s OeOEO; print "
BEGIN { $/ = "\n"; $\ = "\n"; }
$_ = 'e';
s/e/E/;
print $_;
-e syntax OK

$ perl -le" $_ = q 1e1; s 1e1E1; print "
E

$ perl -MO=Deparse -le" $_ = q 1e1; s 1e1E1; print "
BEGIN { $/ = "\n"; $\ = "\n"; }
$_ = 'e';
s/e/E/;
print $_;
-e syntax OK

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[reply]
[d/l]

        This trick appeared on September 19, 2006 on the fun with perl mailing list - Punctuation Free Quine: 

        s zzs vvxv
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s SxSlcfirstSe
and s YZZxZYvvxvYi and print
z
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s ZVZchr 122Zie
and s SxSlcfirstSe
and s YZZxZYvvxvYi and print

        [download]

        <update>

        As you might expect from the wonderful perl documentation, this is documented. From perlop:

        s/PATTERN/REPLACEMENT/msixpodualgcer
        ...
        Any non-whitespace delimiter may replace the slashes. Add space after the "s" when using a character allowed in identifiers.
        </update>

        perl -le'print map{pack c,($-++?1:13)+ord}split//,ESEL'
[reply]
[d/l]
        Alright, I was wrong, thank you for the correction. I am pretty sure I tested it once long ago and concluded that it did not work, but I guess my test was probably wrongly written.

        Surely I should have have better shut up rather than saying something wrong, but at least I learned something that I did not know. Thanks to both of you.

[reply]

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