This is the kind of thing that is often required when passing strings to databases. If this is your issue, you probably should look at functions in Perl modules for database access that process quotes correctly for the database you are using. For instance, when using DBI, instead of doing:

my $quote_string = "The movie \"A Beautiful Mind\" might win an Academ
+y Award";
$sql_string =~ s/"/'/g;

# Whatever SQL functions would follow...
[download]

... you could {probably should} write:

my $quote_string = "The movie \"A Beautiful Mind\" might win an Academ
+y Award";
$sql_string = $dbh->quote($sql_string);

# etc.
[download]

Where $dbh is a properly initialized database handle. This code would not only handle embedded double quotes, but also single quotes, such as those that appear in surnames like "O'Hara".

Other database interfaces such as Sybperl handle this slightly differently, but the idea is the same.

Dave Aiello
Chatham Township Data Corporation