#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $aval = "0";       # string number zero
my $bval = "0.0";     # also a string zero, spelled differently

for my $compare ( $aval, $bval )
{
   print "Comparing '$compare' to 0...\n";
   print "string match\n" if ( $compare eq 0 );
   print "number match\n" if ( $compare == 0 );
}