Escape the star eg. "THIS TEXT HAS A \* IN IT";

Baskslash will escape special chars in a regex! If your regex string is not going to be interpolated twice. Otherwise it's definately best to ignore this monk's advice and skip to the next answer:)

UpdateGrrr. It worked fine in my test program ..mutter mutter mutter...:(

C:\test>perl -w "$_ = 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaa*bbbbbbbbbbb'; print 'Found it!' 
+if (/\*/);"
Can't open perl script "$_ = 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaa*bbbbbbbbbbb'; print 'Foun
+d it!' if (/\*/
);": Invalid argument

C:\test>perl -we "$_ = 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaa*bbbbbbbbbbb'; print 'Found it!'
+ if (/\*/);"
Found it!
C:\test>perl -we "$_ = 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbbbb'; print 'Found it!' 
+if (/\*/);"

C:\test>
[download]

Shame I felt so silly that I (had to) tested it, that I chose not to post the horribly complicated test prog.

<cockney>Say la vee </cockney>:)

And yes, I 'wasted' a vote and ++ Mr. AM.

That guy amazes me, one time s/he asks the most trivial of questions, other times s/he responds with such knowledgable answers. Sometimes for several sometimes on the same day.

It's almost like s/he has a split personality??