Hey thanks for the nice reply, but I was not aware of a difference in the regex with the parentheses (though I updated my post): It would be good if you can point it out for me, always up for learning more Perl ! :-)

print $1 if /^$name$/;

#or

print $1 if /^($name)$/;
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$1 is initialized via regex captures which use parentheses. For example, in the following:

my $string = 'Frank';
my $name   = 'Frank';

print $1 if $string =~ /^$name$/;
print $1 if $string =~ /^($name)$/;
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The first print statement produces:

Use of uninitialized value $1 in...
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Whereas, the second print shows the value in $1:

Frank
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ahh I see, thats valuable information I lost along the way haha thank you for taking the time to explain. Enjoy your week! -Rudolf