hello fellow monks, What I'm trying to do is make a script that searches a user defiened file(mostly txt and csv files) for a user defined pattern. here is my code 

$file = shift;
open(MAT, "<$file") or die "bad file name";


$text = <MAT>;
while($text =~ /the/g) {
 $x += 1; 
}
print "found $x matches\n";

close(MAT);

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what I want to do is make my pattern a $var and i think i'm supposed to use rq{} to do it. I tried doing the rq{} my self but i just foobared that code. What I'm asking is how would I turn my pattern in a $var. any help or suggjestions would help a lot (I've been through the perlop already) ----------------------------------------------------------- Height : varies depending on my speed relative to the observer Weight : is a sensation caused by the gravitational wrapping of time-space Age : time is only a persistent illusion

In reply to regex patterns by dogbert

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