the string comparison is not accurate for IP addresses. Originally I was going to do a cascade comparison on each octet, but lost the will to live and suggested Net::IPAddress instead.

I know. I didn't say anything because A) your suggestion to use Net::IPAddress was better than what I was going to suggest:

unpack "N", pack "C*", split /\./, $ip_address;
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and B) I was heading out the door. :-)