It depends on what you really want. If you just want to test for equality, I'd use eq. If you want to test if a string is a substring of another string, I'd use index. I'd only use regular expressions only as a very last resort, when indeed you need more power in functionality than offered by the above, such as wildcarding (in which case, use "." instead of "?" and ".*" instead of "*").

Yes, in the latter case, quotemeta could have its uses.