Re: Is a integer or string.

[targetsmart]

characters enclosed in "" or '' make a string, numbers otherwise.(other types also exist, but in this case we take only these two)
a string as well used as a number in some cases, and a number can be used as a string in some cases.
in your example, you used ==, in that case, the $value1 and $value2 even though it is a string it will be converted to relevant numbers and then it will be compared.
in case of eq, there will only be string comparison even you compare numbers.
'use strict' pragma can warn/help in those scenarios where you do == on string, etc. but by default perl converts your values internally according to the operator or the area of use

so this is how perl works, the programmer in his design has to differentiate and do the code appropriately.