Things like \S in your "pattern" are being interpreted as regular expressions. You should quotemeta before using the string as a pattern. This is also the same as doing /\Q$pattern/ for a pattern.

If you're just matching literal strings, though, index would be a good way to go.

In reply to Re: Pattern matching and setting the match to a variable by kyle
in thread Pattern matching and setting the match to a variable by mrbbq

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