$x=15;
  $x.=4;
  $x+=2; # ==> 156

##</code><code>##

$temp1=eval { 0+$value1 };
$temp1=$value1 if $@; Perl says it is not a number
$temp2=eval { 0+$value2 };
$temp2=$value2;
# By virtue of eval, we can now use string equality
# even if the values were numbers before.
if ($temp1 eq $temp2) { ... }