Yes, this is the idea!
I was out of town and using a friend's laptop without Perl installed and I was reluctant to post "untested code". This idea applies also in much more complex situations. I have one function that can generate regex'es with 4-12 terms from very similar length "search for" strings due to the "rules".

Anyway if the "rules" can be described as a regex generation algorithm, then I am suggesting in this thread an "additional tool to add to the Perl toolbox".

This had the added benefit of when the end user thinks that something should have either matched or not matched, the test output of the module can print regex'es for test cases (mine does). And the terms are simple enough that a user familiar with Windows '.', and '*' wildcards can tell me some new case to add or delete.

This "write the regex" code replaced what my working group came to call "the regex from hell" - so complicated that you might have to read Mastering Regular Expressions by Jeffrey-Friedl several times before you could understand it!