Multiple substitutions with a single regular expression in perl

Question

Say I have the following in perl:

my $string;
$string =~ s/ /\\\\ /g;
$string =~ s/\'/\\\\\'/g;
$string =~ s/`/\\\\`/g;

Can the above substitut

Answer 1

Although it's arguably easier to read the way you have it now, you can perform these substitutions at once by using a loop, or combining them in one expression:

# loop
$string =~ s/$_/\\$_/g foreach (' ', "'", '`');

# combined
$string =~ s/([ '`])/\\$1/g;

By the way, you can make your substitutions a little easier to read by avoiding "leaning toothpick syndrome", as the various regex operators allow you to use a variety of delimiters:

$string =~ s{ }{\\ }g;
$string =~ s{'}{\\'}g;
$string =~ s{`}{\\`}g;