pattern matching capabilities. Perl provides customary quote characters
for these behaviors, but also provides a way for you to choose your
quote character for any of them. In the following table, a C<{}> represents
-any pair of delimiters you choose. Non-bracketing delimiters use
-the same character fore and aft, but the 4 sorts of brackets
-(round, angle, square, curly) will all nest.
+any pair of delimiters you choose.
Customary Generic Meaning Interpolates
'' q{} Literal no
s{}{} Substitution yes (unless '' is delimiter)
tr{}{} Transliteration no (but see below)
+Non-bracketing delimiters use the same character fore and aft, but the four
+sorts of brackets (round, angle, square, curly) will all nest, which means
+that
+
+ q{foo{bar}baz}
+
+is the same as
+
+ 'foo{bar}baz'
+
+Note, however, that this does not always work for quoting Perl code:
+
+ $s = q{ if($a eq "}") ... }; # WRONG
+
+is a syntax error. The C<Text::Balanced> module on CPAN is able to do this
+properly.
+
There can be whitespace between the operator and the quoting
characters, except when C<#> is being used as the quoting character.
C<q#foo#> is parsed as the string C<foo>, while C<q #foo#> is the
\x1b hex char (ESC)
\x{263a} wide hex char (SMILEY)
\c[ control char (ESC)
+ \N{name} named char
\l lowercase next char
\u uppercase next char
\Q quote non-word characters till \E
If C<use locale> is in effect, the case map used by C<\l>, C<\L>, C<\u>
-and C<\U> is taken from the current locale. See L<perllocale>.
+and C<\U> is taken from the current locale. See L<perllocale>. For
+documentation of C<\N{name}>, see L<charnames>.
All systems use the virtual C<"\n"> to represent a line terminator,
called a "newline". There is no such thing as an unvarying, physical