in reply to Using string literal in regexp

quotemeta or \Q ... \E.

my $bigfoo=quotemeta('aabbaaa$@!#@#$^$#@^bbabaaba');
assert $bigfoo =~ /(a|b)*$foo(a|b)*/;

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or

my $bigfoo='aabbaaa$@!#@#$^$#@^bbabaaba';
assert $bigfoo =~ /(a|b)*\Q$foo\E(a|b)*/;

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"The first rule of Perl club is you do not talk about Perl club."
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In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom