Here's something from the Perl Cookbook. It can allow users to specify matches using shell wildcards instead of full regex's. 
sub glob2pat{
    my $globstr = shift;
    my %patmap = (
        '*' => '.*',
        '?' => '.',
        '[' => '[',
        ']' => ']',
    );
    $globstr =~ s{(.)} { $patmap{$1} || "\Q$1" }ge;
    return '^' . $globstr . '$';
}

[download]
I'm hoping that this can be tailored to whatever you need.

Mick

In reply to RE: Converting shell wildcards into regular expressions by mrmick
in thread Converting shell wildcards into regular expressions by Anonymous Monk

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