You asked them for an interface that would seem to not have enough flexibility.... Why not give them a syntax like:

# & = words & digits (alphanumeric)
# @ = digits
# # = word chars ie [a-zA-Z_]
# . = literal . used to separate parts of interest
# Anything else is taken to be literal in meaning

my $str = "some-file.123.tif";
my $find_str = qq!some-#.@.&!;
print "Here is our filename: $str\nHere is the interface string: $find
+_str\n";

my @bits = split '\.', $find_str;
for (@bits) {
    s/([^&@#a-zA-Z_])/\\$1/g;
    s/&/\\w*/g;
    s/@/\\d*/g;
    s/#/[a-zA-Z_]*/g;
    $_ = "($_)";
}
my $re = join "\\.", @bits;
print "Here is the RE: m/$re/";

$re = qr/$re/;
my (@matches) = $str =~ m/^$re$/;

$" = ', ';
print "\nAnd we got: @matches";

__DATA__
Here is our filename: some-file.123.tif
Here is the interface string: some-#.@.&
Here is the RE: m/(some\-[a-zA-Z_]*)\.(\d*)\.(\w*)/
And we got: some-file, 123, tif
[download]

The syntax is pretty basic - just three chars for word, dogit and alphanumeric. . for the separator. all other chars are literal. This gives you a lot of power to match subsets of filenames and should take no more that 2 minutes to learn....

Update

Changed " token to # so you don't have to escape it in the shell as pointed out by waswas-fng

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

++ tachyon Maybe a different placeholder than " for word would be better -- as you would not have to escape it for your shell.

-Waswas

Ah good point, I was just trying to think of something word like that 3D designers could remember....

I will modify the code to use # for posterity.

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print