Hello Perl Monks, I am trying to understand the mechanics of string comparison in perl. The examples basically all show the same as this example I found online:

cmp Compare:
'a' cmp 'b' # -1
'b' cmp 'a' # 1
'a' cmp 'a' # 0

eq Equal to:
'a' eq 'b' # 0
'b' eq 'a' # 0
'a' eq 'a' # 1

ne Not-Equal to:

'a' ne 'b' # 1
'b' ne 'a' # 1
'a' ne 'a' # 0

lt Less than:
'a' lt 'b' # 1
'b' lt 'a' # 0
'a' lt 'a' # 0

le Less than or equal to:
'a' le 'b' # 1
'b' le 'a' # 0
'a' le 'a' # 1

gt Greater than:
'a' gt 'b' # 0
'b' gt 'a' # 1
'a' gt 'a' # 0

ge Greater than or equal to:
'a' ge 'b' # 0
'b' ge 'a' # 1
'a' ge 'a' # 1

So I took this thing and enclosed it in print "\n";. The code now looks like this:

sub main()
{
    print "cmp Compare:\n";
    print 'a' cmp 'b'."\n"; # -1
    print 'b' cmp 'a'."\n"; #  1
    print 'a' cmp 'a'."\n"; #  0
    print "\n";
    print "eq Equal to:\n";
    print 'a' eq 'b'."\n"; #  0
    print 'b' eq 'a'."\n"; #  0
    print 'a' eq 'a'."\n"; #  1
    print "\n";
    print "ne Not-Equal to\n";
    print 'a' ne 'b'."\n"; #  1
    print 'b' ne 'a'."\n"; #  1
    print 'a' ne 'a'."\n"; #  0
    print "\n";
    print "lt Less than\n";
    print 'a' lt 'b'."\n"; #  1
    print 'b' lt 'a'."\n"; #  0
    print 'a' lt 'a'."\n"; #  0
    print "\n";
    print "le Less than or equal to\n";
    print 'a' le 'b'."\n"; #  1
    print 'b' le 'a'."\n"; #  0
    print 'a' le 'a'."\n"; #  1
    print "\n";
    print "gt Greater than\n";
    print 'a' gt 'b'."\n"; #  0
    print 'b' gt 'a'."\n"; #  1
    print 'a' gt 'a'."\n"; #  0
    print "\n";
    print "ge Greater than or equal to\n";
    print 'a' ge 'b'."\n"; #  0
    print 'b' ge 'a'."\n"; #  1
    print 'a' ge 'a'."\n"; #  1
    print "\n";
}
[download]

The desired results are already given in the example. In contrast, when I run the program, my shell tells me the following:

D:\perl>perl StringCompare.pl
cmp Compare:
-11-1
eq Equal to:

ne Not-Equal to
111
lt Less than
11
le Less than or equal to
11
gt Greater than
1
ge Greater than or equal to
1
[download]

Now I'm all flabbergasted. What's going on there? As it doesn't print the '0's, it seems the only thing that gives the right number of '1's is "Less than or equal to". Everything else seems to do something unexpected. What did I do wrong here?

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