learn regular expressions

The trick is to remember that they’re not confusing as long as you don’t think about them. Once you start thinking about them they get confusing. Just take a step back and try not to rack your brain.

$line =~ s/\027-\036\004-\025\376\377//gi;
maybe if i ignore it it will go away…
(if i have my head on straight, this replaces several nonprintable charachters with nothingness)

edit: http://www.weitz.de/regex-coach/ <—made of pure awesome