Hi chrism01, use Quotemeta "\Q & \E".

if( $str1 =~ /^\Q$str2\E/ )
{
    print "match\n";
}
else
{
    print "nomatch\n";
}
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Updated

See the documentation in perldoc as quotemeta

In string2 $str2 = ".1.2.3.4";, dots(.) are present and it will be treated as any character except new line in regular expression. So dots should be escaped using "\Q".