[pm-h] Discussion about delimiters for m//

[G. Wade Johnson]

Near the end of the meeting last night, there was a minor discussion at
the whiteboard about which characters Perl allows as delimiters on the
match operator.

According to PerlDoc:

 If "/" is the delimiter then the initial "m" is optional.  With the
 "m" you can use any pair of non- whitespace (ASCII) characters as
 delimiters.  This is particularly useful for matching path names that
 contain "/", to avoid LTS (leaning toothpick syndrome).  If "?" is the
 delimiter, then a match-only- once rule applies, described in
 "m?PATTERN?" below.  If "'" is the delimiter, no interpolation is
 performed on the PATTERN.  When using a character valid in an
 identifier, whitespace is required after the "m".

So, that means that 

   $str =~ m mabc+m;

is valid Perl and it matches "abc+".

Weird. I can't think of a real use for it and using it in production
code is likely to get you beaten by whoever maintains your code.

G. Wade
-- 
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'
                                                     -- Isaac Asimov