Even faster than index() or a regex -- I would imagine -- would be substr() and eq together. 
if (substr($large, 0, length($small)) eq $small) { ... }

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Jeff japhy Pinyan, P.L., P.M., P.O.D, X.S.: Perl, regex, and perl hacker
How can we ever be the sold short or the cheated, we who for every service have long ago been overpaid? ~~ Meister Eckhart

In reply to Re: Regex Start Anchor with variables by japhy
in thread Regex Start Anchor with variables by chrism01

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