Let's check it out with today's favorite toy (Deparse): 
# perl -MO=Deparse,-p -we 'print "Eek\n" if (shift ne "");'
((shift(@ARGV) ne '') and print("Eek\n"));
-e syntax OK
# perl -MO=Deparse,-p -we "print 'Eek\n' if (shift ne '');"
((shift(@ARGV) ne '') and print('Eek\\n'));
-e syntax OK

[download]

It would seem that perl is smart enough at compile time to fix that up for you, just like you would expect.

--
$you = new YOU;
honk() if $you->love(perl)

In reply to Re: A better non-existant string... by extremely
in thread A better non-existant string... by lzcd

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