RegEx Problem

Special characters inside of variables cannot be escaped, but Perl tries to use them in a RegEx. Try this example program to see what I mean:

-----PROGRAM-----
#!/usr/bin/perl

$test = "This + test";
$test2 = "+";
if($test =~ /^This $test2 test$/) {
print "WORKS!!!";
}
else {
print "DOESN'T WORK";
}
-----PROGRAM-----

The result will always be "DOESN"T WORK". The same result will occur if you change $test2 = "\+".

To verify that the program isn't at fault, the following always returns "WORKS!!!":

-----PROGRAM-----
#!/usr/bin/perl

$test = "This + test";
if($test =~ /^This \+ test$/) {
print "WORKS!!!";
}
else {
print "DOESN'T WORK";
}
-----PROGRAM-----

How can I tell Perl to ignore "special" characters in a variable when performing a RegExp comparison?

Thanks.
.

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