You can use pass around strings: if you use them as a pattern, it will be a pattern (in that sense, regular expressions aren't different from numbers or strings). This is legal: 
    if ($var =~ "pattern") { .. }

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Or you could use a qr construct. See man perlop for details.

In reply to Re: How to pass regular expression as variable ? by JavaFan
in thread How to pass regular expression as variable ? by bh_perl

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