in reply to Including special characters in a search and replace

How about this?
$line =~ s/39/3$fields[0]/; $line =~ s/39/3$fields[1]/; $line =~ s/39/3$fields[2]/; $line =~ s/39/3$fields[3]/;

Update: This answer is getting voted down a lot. Maybe I am blind today, but could someone point out what is wrong with it?