This module (Text::ParagraphDiff) is nice for comparing texts (more so manuscripts than code). It works great using two files for comparison, but now when I try to just put in straight text, I can't get the line breaks to be accepted. I have tried as the code is below, and also directly from some text in a database, to no avail. The same text from the database put into a file works fine when I use the file method.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Text::ParagraphDiff;

my $copy_old = qq|the first line
the second line is here
this really should be on separate lines, no?
weird eh?|;

my $copy_new = qq|the FIRST line
the second line is there not here
this really should be on sequential lines, no?
weird huh?|;

#THIS IS THE DIRECT TEXT METHOD
#THAT LINE BREAKS GET IGNORED
print text_diff(["$copy_old"], ["$copy_new"]);
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and the other way is:

#THIS IS THE FILE METHOD THAT WORKS
#AND DOESN"T IGNORE LINE BREAKS

print text_diff('/somepath/old.txt','/somepath/new.txt');
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I have tried substituting various end of line characters like:

$copy_old =~ s/\n/\r\n/;
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or

$copy_old =~ s/\r\n/\n\n\n\n/;
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Could it be something in the module itself? I tried to look through the code, but it is above my level of experience.

I have lots of text that must maintain the line breaks for it to make sense. Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!