If the user types in a backslash than an "n", you'll be fine. If he/she puts in line breaks you simply wish to get rid of, use this:

$text =~ tr/\n\r//;
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If you want to replace the line breaks with some other character, place the replacement character between the 2nd and 3rd slashes.

Update: An easier way might be to borrow escape() from the CGI module, which escapes anything non-alphanumeric to it's alias (like "&" becomes "&"):

$text = CGI::escape($text);
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When you want to translate it back to it's original form, use CGI::unescape();

Or, if you're trying to make a home-grown database (which is not recommended), try using Berkeley DBM. It'll take care of all that stuff for you, be much faster, and much less bug-prone.

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