Win8 Strawberry 5.8.9.5 (32)  Sat 05/01/2021 17:03:44
C:\@Work\Perl\monks
>perl -Mstrict -Mwarnings -l

my $search = "x2\\.+\\x4";
print $search;

^Z
x2\.+\x4
  ^^
  ||
  ++----- backslash escaped literal period (one or more)