I have a large tab-delimited data file:

e.g.

Town\tCounty
Westminster\tGreater London
King's Cross\tGreater London
Mayfair (north)\tGreater London
Mayfair (south)\tGreater London
...

[download]

what i am doing is a count of some things, then adding a value to each list item; 

Town\tCounty\tVALUE

[download]

love perl for how easy this (generally) is; 

$tmp=(get the file contents);
$tmp=~s/\r//g;
$tmp="\n$tmp\n";

($n,$v)=[got from somewhere, same as list items]
($ctr)=[got from somewhere else]
($rctr)=[count of replacements made]

## attempt 1

if ($tmp=~/^$n\t$v$/) {          
   $tmp=~s/^$n\t$v$/$n\t$v\t$ctr/;
   $rctr++;
} else {

....

[download]

THE PROBLEM is that if $n contains brackets () or a single quote ', then it doesn't match. Now, the following fixes the brackets, it matches fine, BUT NOT THE QUOTE. I cannot match or replace the list items with single quotes (apostrophes): 

# attempt 2

   $n=~s/\(/\\(/g;    ## << this works ok!
   $n=~s/\)/\\)/g;
   $n=~s/\'/\\'/g;    ## << same method, NO WORK!</font>

   if ($tmp=~/^$n\t$v$/) {
    $tmp=~s/^$n\t$v$/$n\t$v\t$ctr/;
        $gctr++;
   }

[download]

How do i fix this? Anyone? Help gratefully appreciated!

In reply to Not matching a single quote (apostrophe!) by puddleglum

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