Build your own regex out of your user's input.

my @match = qw(; : -);
my $match = join('|', map { "\Q$_" } @match);

if ('random-text' =~ /$match/) {
  print "yep\n";
} else {
  print "nope\n";
}
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Note the use of \Q in case your users input regex metacharacters. \Q escapes them so they aren't treated as metacharacters.

$sep  = quotemeta(";:-");

while (<>)
{
  @line = split /[$sep]/;
}
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perl -le '$_="foo;bar:quux-blorflydick";my $p = "[".shift()."]"; print
+ "@{[split/$p/,$_]}"' ';:y-'
foo bar quux blorfl dick
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Yes. It's possible. Just make your split chars into a character class and use that in split (escaping meta-chars where necessary).

--shmem

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}