Use \b to assert a word boundary then. my $word = qr/\b(directory|file|age|action)\b/; Or ^ and $ to assert string start/end (respectively). my $word = qr/^(directory|file|age|action)$/; Or any combination of the two that you like. See perldoc perlre.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^3: regex question by Aristotle
in thread regex question by gnu@perl

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