regexp question

Nodonomy has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: regexp question by Anonymous Monk on Jan 29, 2011 at 02:40 UTC
Maybe you would prefer the HTML::Entities module.	[reply]
Re^2: regexp question by Nodonomy (Novice) on Jan 29, 2011 at 03:12 UTC
I have used HTML:Entities `encode_entities($text)` to convert all the quotes, ampersands, and the like in my text in order to be able to do an 'insert' of the text into MySQL. Now my problem is how to search on this text (or a subset of it) with all the HTML numbers in it. In other words, how can I search on "Apples & Oranges" when the actual text now in the table is "Apples `&` Oranges"? I thought maybe I should just remove the HTML numbers (such as #8220; and `&`) and settle for that. I feel a little sheepish in asking this, since it seems something that I should know. In fact though this seems like a problem many people have, and that there probably is some consistent ways to address it. Unfortunately I'm not familiar with such an approach.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: regexp question by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 29, 2011 at 04:19 UTC
how can I search on "Apples & Oranges" when You really can't. "A" could be stored as any of `A` `A` `A` `A` ... `A` `A` `A` ... You'd need to decode the text to search it. the actual text now in the table is "`Apples & Oranges`"? Why? (How did you even reach this point from asking how to decode HTML text into plain text?)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^4: regexp question by Nodonomy (Novice) on Jan 29, 2011 at 14:20 UTC
Re^5: regexp question by Anonymous Monk on Jan 29, 2011 at 17:08 UTC
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Re^5: regexp question by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 29, 2011 at 18:14 UTC
Re^2: regexp question by Anonymous Monk on Jan 29, 2011 at 02:56 UTC
Hey, that module uses regex :p	[reply]
Re: regexp question by elef (Friar) on Jan 29, 2011 at 17:17 UTC
So why don't you 1) do your searches before encoding or 2) decode to some temporary location for the purpose of searching or 3) encode your search expression with the same encoder and procedure as well ...?	[reply]
Re^2: regexp question by Nodonomy (Novice) on Jan 29, 2011 at 17:21 UTC
I believe #3 is the correct way.	[reply]
Re^3: regexp question by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 29, 2011 at 18:21 UTC
No, it's a lot of needless work.	[reply]
Re^4: regexp question by Nodonomy (Novice) on Jan 29, 2011 at 18:55 UTC
Re^5: regexp question by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 29, 2011 at 19:43 UTC
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