By that logic an unmatched ')' doesn't mean anything so shouldn't need to be escaped, yet it generates an error.

japhy's eplanation is satisfying for unmatched '{' and '}' and extends to an unmatched ']' too. Why not extend the argument to an unmatched ')'? Is that so much more likely a "You Really Mean That?" error that it's worth special casing?

DWIM is Perl's answer to Gödel

In reply to Re^3: Perl Regular Expression inconsistency by GrandFather
in thread Perl Regular Expression inconsistency by jkva

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