I think that the way you are trying to do it, it is modifying the original string each time. I think you should copy the result of the regex into a variable of its own like: 
use strict;
use warnings;

my $string = '123!';
my $new_string = $string =~ s/!/4/r;
print "original - $string\nreplacement - $new_string";

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This way you leave the original string untouched and can modify it 20 different ways from tuesday if needed :)

In reply to Re: Escaping special characters by james28909
in thread Escaping special characters by tiny_monk

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