No, I need to use it in a "search and replace" style. I think the only way to do that with "eq" would be to take the length of the string and then compare every segment of that length, advancing thru the data one character at a time. Parsing the string first will be easier.
Tk::text DOES have an "exact" match option (like the ones in your word processor, web browser, etc.) but i then need a way to apply the string from the GUI in searches of files that, for example, have not yet been loaded into the Tk GUI. I do think it's odd that we can't go:
if ($str=~/^?.../E)
where "E" would meaning ignoring special characters -- the equivalent of:
if ($str=~/\^\?\.\.\./)
