#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $a = 'abc == 123';
if ($a =~ /^(.*?)==(.*)$/) {
   print "This will match\n";
   print "First: $1\nLast: $2\n";
}
if ($a =~ /^(.*?)\b==\b(.*)$/) {
   print "This will not match\n";
   print "First: $1\nLast: $2\n";
}