In both the cases you are using regexp.

Method1 seems faster than method2.

To benchmark the code, go for Benchmark module

Here is the comparison....

use strict;
use warnings;
use Benchmark qw(cmpthese);

cmpthese(-1,
{method1=>sub {my $item = 'path/path1==new';my ($epath, $relt) =  spli
+t /==/, $item;},method2=>sub {my $item = 'path/path1==new';my ($epath
+, $relt) =  $item =~ /([^=]*)==(.*)/;}
}
);

            Rate method2 method1
method2 200037/s      --    -37%
method1 315836/s     58%      --
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