Perl mysql_escape_string equivalent

I have a saved HTML page stored in a variable. I want to copy this data into my database. The problem is, MySQL throws an error complaining that the data isn't escaped due to ""s. I would use PHP, but the existing script is quite large (>11,000 lines) and already in Perl. Is there a function similar to mysql_escape_string which escapes unescaped strings, or maybe a commonly used regex which does this? Thanks

Perl actually has something way better. It is a concept called placeholders. Simply google or search this forum for "DBI placeholders".

For one thing, you don't need to call mysql_escape_string(), oracle_escape_string(), mssql_escape_string() or whatever for every database engine, since it automatically knows how to escape the string for every engine. On top of that, it runs a bit faster in loops since the database engine isn't recompiling the statement every time.

Perhaps I included too much information in the OP. I just wanted to know how to escape a String with Perl. The whole reason I posted was because all I could find was stuff about using placeholders.... I ended up url-encoding the string with this nifty one-liner (found HERE):

Placeholders are a far better solution than escaped strings.

If you must do it that way, I'd use the quote method: