In 5.10, you can let Perl worry about when to use eq and when to use ==:

for (@array) {
    when ("#") {do_something()}
    when (1) {do_where_var_is_1()}
    default {do_something_else()}
}
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Note that your code will give a warning if the @array contains '!', or any other string that doesn't look like a number and isn't equal to '#'