in reply to "2" | "8" = ":" and 2|8=10

misread OP or it has changed? Hunhhhh?

OP's bitwise OR of a string doesn't puzzle me, but "2|10 = 12" does.

perl -e "use 5.012; say 2|8;"
10

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and that's even an example (*nix style quoting), in perlop:

print "false\n" if (8 | 2) != 10;

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom