Re: Is there a nicer way to do regex search and replace with literal backslashes?

I think this is what you were going for:

my $needle = 'mo4\dy13\hr19\\';
my $haystack = '\yr2012\mo4\dy13\hr19\min23\sec51';

$haystack =~ s/\Q$needle\E([^3]*3)/${needle}new/;

print 'Final $haystack:', $haystack, "\n";
[download]

If you look up quotemeta, or perlretut you'll see discussion on the \Q...\E metacharacters and how they simplify escaping of strings.

Dave

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Re^2: Is there a nicer way to do regex search and replace with literal backslashes? by AnomalousMonk (Archbishop) on Apr 15, 2012 at 01:09 UTC
Here are examples using both davido's code and a version with the 5.10+ `\K` regex metacharacter (operator?). `>perl -wMstrict -le "my $needle = 'mo4\dy13\hr19\\'; my $h1 = my $h2 = '\yr2012\mo4\dy13\hr19\min23\sec51'; ;; print qq{'$h1'}; $h1 =~ s/\Q$needle\E([^3]3)/${needle}new/; print qq{'$h1'}; ;; print qq{'$h2'}; $h2 =~ s{ \Q$needle\E \K [^3] 3 }{new}xms; print qq{'$h2'}; ;; $h1 eq $h2 or die 'oops...'; " '\yr2012\mo4\dy13\hr19\min23\sec51' '\yr2012\mo4\dy13\hr19\new\sec51' '\yr2012\mo4\dy13\hr19\min23\sec51' '\yr2012\mo4\dy13\hr19\new\sec51'` [download]	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^3: Is there a nicer way to do regex search and replace with literal backslashes? by davido (Cardinal) on Apr 15, 2012 at 01:22 UTC
Very nice. It's one thing to read it in the POD, and another entirely to commit the use of a new tool to habit. After seeing your concise illustration I think it will stick in my head this time. :) Dave	[reply]