The /e switch is an error by me - it is a leftover from when I thought about doing the hex-conversion manually with a sprintf call in the right hand side..

I always build my regular expressions with noncapturing parentheses when I pal on latter assembling them - this prevents embarassing bug hunts later when I change how the target RE is built, possibly by repeating one ("atomic") building block - leaving out the parentheses causes hard-to-track misbehaviour with input on the seam of the two blocks.

I always build my regular expressions with noncapturing parentheses when I pal on latter assembling them - this ...

Same here, but I've always thought of qr// as an alternative way to add those parens (which it does). You are, in effect, adding two pairs.

Anno