my @DELIMS = (qw( _ @ )); ... ... /[@DELIM]/ ... #### >perl -wMstrict -le "my @DELIMS = (qw( _ @ )); ;; my $rx = qr{[@DELIMS]}; print $rx; ;; { local $\" = ''; $rx = qr{[@DELIMS]}; } print $rx; ;; my $cc = join '', @DELIMS; $rx = qr{[$cc]}; print $rx; " (?^:[_ @]) (?^:[_@]) (?^:[_@])