Hello all.

I'm attempting to pre-build part of a SQL statement in perl before passing it to the DBI engine. My SQL statement needs to do a like in the DB engine, and I'd intend to utilize the SQL % sign. However, the presence of the % sign in the string has perl attempt to satisfy the %B or %1 as the string gets assigned instead of just passing it along as a string.

I'd like my SQL statement to eventually resemble the following:

select winner from results where round='2' and (event like '%USA%' and
+ event like '%Boys%');
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here's a code snippet example of the perl I'm attempting to write:

if ($form{'category'} eq 'All USA Boys') { 
   $clause="(event like '%USA%' and event like '%Boys%')"; 
} 
printf "Existing clause assignment logic; clause variable is $clause<p
+>" if $debug;
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The printf of the above code ends up as follows:
Existing clause assignment logic; clause variable is (event like '0SA%' and event like '0oys%')

%U got turned into 0, as did %B. This also happens with a few other words where I attempt to wrap the word in a like statement.

How do I get Perl to NOT interpret this and to pass the string along as intended?

I've tried escaping the % sign with a \, tried \Q and \E, tried replacing the % sign as a variable, tried breaking up the strings at the % signs and then re-concatenating them, etc. All to no avail.

Hoping i'm missing something simple...thanks in advance.