I agree completely with the advice. But in this specific case, 'c:\h\COTS\Perl\lib' eq 'c:\\h\\COTS\\Perl\\lib', so this is not the source of the problem.

The reason I agree with the advice is that using strings like 'c:\h\COTS' often leads to mistakes such as using a string like 'c:\h\COTS\' (which will probably be a syntax error, depending on what comes after it) or '\\server\share' (which has a value of \server\share, containing only a single opening backslash).

                - tye