How can I use 's///' if my string contains a '/'?

Question

I'm using Perl 5.10.6 on Mac 10.6.6. I want to execute a simple search and replace against a file so I tried:

my $searchAndReplaceCmd = "perl -pi -e 's/\\Q${localTestDir}\\E//g' ${testSuiteFile}";
system( $searchAndReplaceCmd );

but the problem above is the variable $localTestDir contains directory separators ("/"), and this screws up the regular expression ...

Bareword found where operator expected at -e line 1, near "s/\Q/home/selenium"

Backslash found where operator expected at -e line 1, near "Live\" syntax error at -e line 1, near "s/\Q/home/selenium"

Search pattern not terminated at -e line 1.

How do I do a search and replace on a file when the variable in question contains regular expression characters? Thanks.

Answer 1

It seems that $localTestDir has begins with a /.

Remedy by changing the regex delimiter to something other than /:

my $searchAndReplaceCmd = "perl -pi -e 's!\\Q${localTestDir}\\E!!g' ${testSuiteFile}";

---

From perldoc perlrequick :

$x = "A 39% hit rate";
$x =~ s!(\d+)%!$1/100!e;       # $x contains "A 0.39 hit rate"

The last example shows that s/// can use other delimiters, such as s!!! and s{}{}, and even s{}//. If single quotes are used s''', then the regex and replacement are treated as single-quoted strings.