Glancing at your post, I see

my $txt = '/w sample text with some / special /w characters > xyz';
system('msg', 'username', $txt);
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Is that the one that's giving you problems? That's suppose to be equivalent to

msg username "/w sample text with some / special /w characters > xyz"
[download]

Which is obviously incorrect. Does that answer your question? I gotta run without looking at your post in detail at this time.