I think what you're looking for is a string eval, which would be something like this: 
if (eval "\$consumption $operator")

[download]

But I wouldn't recommend you do that. It means any errors in $operator will be runtime instead of compile-time errors, and that code will be re-compiled every time through your loop, which is bad for performance.

Instead, consider customizing your condition with a small sub, something like: 

sub process_match
{
  my($consumption)=@_;
  return $consumption > 98.0;
}
if (process_match($consumption)) { do something; }

[download]
This gives you the same flexibility without any of the downsides of string eval.

Good luck!

Update: $consumption should be escaped in eval. Thanks, ikegami!


--
sgifford's Web page

In reply to Re: Using dynamic operators in an if() statement by sgifford
in thread Using dynamic operators in an if() statement by captkirk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.