Squiz Matrix currently has ways of comparing numbers, with boolean keyword modifiers for equating or determining which number is greater or less than another number. I noticed we don't have a modifier to equate strings...
After some experimentation, I developed this little coding nugget of goodness...
%variable_to_be_compared^explode:~^in_array:string_to_be_compared:string_if_found:string_if_not_found%
An example of this would be:
%name_of_client^explode:~^in_array:John:Hello John:Hello stranger%
Naturally, the use of `~` is arbitrary, as this character is meant to be one guaranteed not to be in the variable's value. choosing something obscure like the pound sterling symbol would make things even easier, but exploding a string into an array using a delimiter character not found in the string forces the array into a single element array that can be searched in, and will return TRUE for a matching string, and FALSE for a non-matching string. As it's unlikely that a tilde would appear in a generic string value, I've used that within my example.
I hope this helps anyone looking for a quick and dirty way of matching strings...
~ Eliseo