Perl doesn't do "hmmm, it walks like a regex, it quacks like a regex, so this thing must be a regex". No, Perl is more like "hey, you use this thing as if it's a regex, so it'll be a regex". Strings, numbers, arrays, hashes, anything can be a regex:

    $ perl -wle 'print "Yes" if 8 =~ @INC'
    Yes
    $
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It's all in the same line as strings becoming numbers and vica versa, arrays becoming numbers in scalar context, etc. This could lead to bizarre looking code like:

    $ perl -le 'print "Yes" if %INC =~ %INC'
    Yes
    $
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Abigail