Do 

    $a =~ s/(\W)/\\\1/g;
# or
    $a =~ s/(\W)/\\$1/g;

[download]
before your "if" line. I'd test this but I've lost track of my Perl4 executable. I redownloaded perl4 and both of those work for me (if you also drop the \Q and \E that I forgot to mention).

        - tye

In reply to (tye)Re: Escaping metacharacters by tye
in thread Escaping metacharacters by nosduh

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