Hrm, just guessing, but are you building your query like the following:

# @TERMS defined elsewhere
my $query = 'SELECT ';
foreach my $term (@TERMS) {
    $query .= "$term,";
}
$query .= 'WHERE foo = ?';
[download]

If so, try this instead:

my $query = 'SELECT ' . join(',', @TERMS) . 'WHERE foo = ?';
[download]

As for your orginal question, try using '\z' instead of '$'. '$' is supposed to match the end of a line. In other words, a new line. '\z' is usually more correct. The two are often interchangable, but will bite you when you confuse the two.

----
I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident.
-- Schemer

Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated