regex special chars

rsiedl has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi,

I've got a regular expression query...

Is it possible to "automatically" backslash the regex "special" characters if they appear in a term?
Example:
I have a record that looks like such: "A random record + stuff".
when i do a regex on that record i would need to \ the +.
If I have a bunch of records that could possilbe contain any character, I would have to do that for every character that could cause a problem.
I would like to know if there is an "easier" way than =~ s/\+/\\\+/g; for every "special" character?
Cheers,
Reagen

Comment on regex special chars Download Code

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Re: regex special chars by dragonchild (Archbishop) on May 27, 2004 at 13:44 UTC
Wrap it in \Q and \E. So, for example, if you wanted to match a +, you could do `/\Q+\E/` ------ We are the carpenters and bricklayers of the Information Age. Then there are Damian modules.... sigh* ... that's not about being less-lazy -- that's about being on some really good drugs -- you know, there is no spoon.* - flyingmoose I shouldn't have to say this, but any code, unless otherwise stated, is untested	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: regex special chars by rsiedl (Friar) on May 27, 2004 at 13:46 UTC
Thanks.	[reply]
Re: regex special chars by Roy Johnson (Monsignor) on May 27, 2004 at 13:45 UTC
`/\Q$literal_string\E/` See `perldoc -f quotemeta` The PerlMonk `tr///` Advocate	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: regex special chars by Ven'Tatsu (Deacon) on May 27, 2004 at 13:45 UTC
You can use `/\Q$patern_to_match_literaly\E/` from the perlre man page: \E end case modification (think vi) \Q quote (disable) pattern metacharacters till \E	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: regex special chars by rsiedl (Friar) on May 27, 2004 at 13:48 UTC
I love perlmonks. Thanks guys :)	[reply]
Re: regex special chars by matsmats (Monk) on May 27, 2004 at 13:50 UTC
Read up on the function quotemeta. Alternatively, wrap it with \Q$regexp\E in your regexp like this: `my $text = 'foo bar + \wbaz'; my $re = ' + \w'; if ($text =~ /(\Q$re\E)/) { print $1; } else { warn "nothing found\n"; }` [download] That goes for the same as quotemeta does, just for the regexp. Mats	[reply] [d/l]