Hi all! At work, I'm writing a script that uses a configuration file of strings that are converted to regular expressions. I have my script working for matching, but it breaks for substitution. For example, the string to match to might look like

 $lhs = (\d*?)-(.*?)-(.*)

and the right hand side (for substitution looks like:

 $rhs = $1$2$3

I'm using the code likes this:

 $var =~ s/$lhs/$rhs/ee

If I run it like above, I get an error message: 

Scalar found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "$1$"
        (Missing operator before $?)
Scalar found where operator expected at (eval 1) line 1, near "$2$"
        (Missing operator before $?)

[download]

I've also tried with a single "e" or no "e"s at all, and just get this for the value of $var: $1$2$3

For the test case that I'm passing into this regular expression, it is matching properly and all the capture groups are capturing ( I had it print out the values of $1, $2, $3 and it gave me the expected output correctly )

This is running on a server at work that has Perl v5.8.8 installed on it. Unfortunately, the decision to upgrade it is not mine, although discussions have been started once I raised it as a concern. Is the age of this Perl install the problem, or am I missing something else?

Thanks in advance for any assistance!

In reply to "ee" in Regular Expression: version issue? by Anonymous Monk

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