"Escape" meaning what, exactly?

If you want to escape it for use in a URL have a look at URI::URL's equery() method. If you want to escape it for use in a regex, take a look at the quotemeta() function and the \Q and \E escapes. (Info in perldoc perlre.) If you want to escape it for use in HTML, use CGI.pm's escapeHTML() method...

If you want something else, you'll need to be more specific.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";