---
name: quotemeta
status: documented
runtime: pp
source: src/runtime/pp/strings/convert.rs
---
```{index} single: quotemeta; Perl built-in (pp runtime)
```

# quotemeta

## Synopsis

```perl
my $safe = quotemeta($string);
$string =~ /\Q$pattern\E/;     # \Q invokes quotemeta
```

## Description

Escapes all non-"word" characters with a preceding backslash.

Returns a version of the string where every non-word character
(`[^A-Za-z0-9_]`) is preceded by `\`.  Useful for interpolating
literal strings into regular expressions.  If all characters are
already word characters, the input is returned unchanged with
no allocation.

## See also

m//, s///