Escape for the layer you are in
Explain why escaping differs in regex literals, string constructors, replacement text, and character classes.
The move: run an escape checklist for every layer. Escaping bugs are not moral failures. They happen because the same glyph travels through multiple interpreters. The code editor shows source text. The programming language turns that source text into a string. The regex engine compiles that string into a pattern. A replacement operation may then interpret dollars or backslashes again. Use a checklist before changing an escape-heavy expression: What literal character do I want to match? Is that character special to the regex engine? Is the backslash special to the host language string? Am I inside a character class where…
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