Various programs display little boxes, if the used font doesn't have a glyph for the character in question. In your case it's the control char \x19 (EM, or "End of Medium").

The regex /^\x19(.*)\x19/s should match, if you match it against a string which holds all the lines, beginning with \x19.

Update: A little clarification as to "How would I match?". If you write my $match = m/.../, the variable $match would hold whether the regex matched. In case you want to extract the part in between the parentheses, you'd have to write my ($match) = m/.../ to provide list context... (as often, context makes Perl behave differently). Also, both matches assume that the string you match against is in $_. If you want to match against another variable (e.g. $text), you'd have to write my ($match) = $text =~ m/.../.

In reply to Re: Searching between wierd box characters. by almut
in thread Searching between wierd box characters. by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.