#! perl -w

use strict;
use Benchmark;

my $x='The Monastery Gates';
my $y='http://www.perlmonks.org/';

timethese(1000000,{eq=>sub{ if (lc $x eq lc $y) {} }, re=>sub{ if ($x =~ /^$y$/i) {} }})

__END__

Benchmark: timing 1000000 iterations of a, b...
         eq:  1 wallclock secs ( 1.12 usr +  0.00 sys =  1.12 CPU) @ 891265.60/s (n=1000000)
         re:  2 wallclock secs ( 1.06 usr +  0.00 sys =  1.06 CPU) @ 979431.93/s (n=1000000)