I'm really still not clear on the difference.

A multiplier tells the multiplication operator by how much it should multiply. The multiplier is data, the operator is Perl code.

A regex pattern tells the match operator what it should be match. The pattern is data to Perl, the operator is Perl code.

You don't expect $c = '4 * 5'; 3 + $c to execute the contents of $c, so why would you expect differently from $c = '/foo/'; $x =~ $c?

It works, as long as what the user provides doesn't have any spaces in it. (ex: /Bill Clinton/i causes the program to fail, but /BillClinton/i doesn't.) How do I fix that?

I'm guessing the problem is that the user did NOT provide an argument with spaces in it, but rather passed two arguments. Quote the argument appropriately for your shell.

In reply to Re^3: qr// and user provided regex patterns... by ikegami
in thread qr// and user provided regex patterns... by misterMatt

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