combining regexps

[rotis23]

Hi all,

I've got a set of regexps to escape asterisks and brackets:

$string =~ s/\*/\\\*/g;

$string =~ s/\(/\\\(/g;

$string =~ s/\)/\\\)/g;

I would use quotemeta, but I don't want to escape full stops (periods).

Can I combine the above statements into one regexp?

Is there a better way to escape a specific set of characters and not others?

Thanks, rotis23

 

[duncdude]

$string = 'this is * a line of ( text with ) asterisks * and ( brackets ) in it';
print "before: $string\n";
$string =~ s/([*,(,)])/\\\1/g;
print " after: $string\n";


Kind Regards
Duncan

 

[rotis23]

Thanks.

 

[icrf]

The RHS of a s/// is like a double quoted string, so it's best to use $1 instead of \1.

http://www.perldoc.com/perl5.8.0/pod/perlre.html#Warning-on-\1-vs-$1

________________________________________
Andrew - Perl Monkey

 

[CadGuyExtraordinaire]

Also, why are you also backslashing the commas ","

in the substitution the [stuff in here] isnt comma separated, it's just a group of characters to match...I bet considering the fact rotis23 doesnt want to escape the periods that they are working on text stuff (like stuff people read/write) which would have "," in it...so just do this:

$string =~ s/([*()])/\\$1/g;

CGE

 

[rotis23]

Thanks for your help peoples.

It's actually escaping bad email address characters before using them in an LDAP query.