You could use the "-|" form of open and exec your program directly: 
    my $pid = open(PIPE, '-|');
    if (!defined($pid)) {
        die "fork failure: $!\n";
    }
    elsif (!$pid) {
        # Child process
        exec 'search', $pattern;
        die "exec failure: $!\n";
    }
    else {
        # parent
        ...
    }

[download]
This guarantees there won't be copy of the shell involved, so shell metacharacters in the search string are irrelevant.

In reply to Re: Question about input pipes and sub-shells by kjherron
in thread Question about input pipes and sub-shells by Joey The Saint

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