in reply to unable to differentiate last word and intermediate word in a sentence

perl -le '$_=q{hi! how are you, man.};s/([!@#$%^&(),.}{[\]+-])/\\$1/g;
+print'
hi\! how are you\, man\.

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  • Comment on Re: how insert back slash to a string that has only special characters or mixture of both
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Re^2: how insert back slash to a string that has only special characters or mixture of both
by k_manimuthu (Monk) on Sep 06, 2010 at 08:06 UTC

    The quotemeta function do this.

    $var="!@#$%^&(),.}{[]+-";
print "\n$var";
$var_with_slash=quotemeta($var);
print"\n$var_with_slash";

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Re^2: how insert back slash to a string that has only special characters or mixture of both
by ww (Archbishop) on Sep 06, 2010 at 11:42 UTC
    suhailck:

    That may not be (see "Update") what OP sought: "for each special character in..." a string of special chars (only) .

    Emphasis supplied.

    Update Oops. Apologies to suhailck!

    I missed the fact that the title explicitly allows for a "mixture" (and relied on OP's narrative and example). Hence, suhailck's reply is arguably better than the next, since the second, among other things, will convert #$%^ to #0\^ and escape the spaces, if a string of "words" is inserted in the $var

    my $var="!@#$%^&(),.Now is the time}{[]+-";
print "\n$var";
my $var_with_slash=quotemeta($var);
print"\n$var_with_slash";

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    outputs:

    !@#0^&(),.Now is the time}{[]+-
\!\@\#0\^\&\(\)\,\.Now\ is\ the\ time\}\{\[\]\+\-

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