Stevie-O,
Very good post. Let me try to break it down.
Case 1. Simply means you get what's b/t the single-quotes when there aren't any backslashes (complicating things).
Case 2. Is an exception that allows you to use your termination character inside your string. To do this an "evil" backslash is used. You only get the term char in your string; the backslash disappears....
Case 3. I guess is a way to get a backslash into your string by using two consecutive backslashes. This confuses me b/c....
Case 4. Says that a backslash that is followed by anything other then a backslash or term char adds the backslash and the char following it. To me this seems redundant, b/c Case 3 also got you a backslash in your string.
I am posting some code as an example.
print 'case 3 ','Test\\ing';
print "\n";
print 'case 4 ','Test\ing';
print "\n";
erikweibust@daleweibust ~/perl/lrn_perl $ ./test2.pl
case 3 Test\ing
case 4 Test\ing