Question

I’m trying to do some simple math like

$example = (12 - 4);

but I need single digit answers to have a 0 in front of them so $example should be

08 not 8    

I know I could do something like

if ($example < 10){
    $result = "0$example";
}

But I have to think there’s a way to specify how many digits you want your output to be when doing simple math like this.

Answer 1

I recommend saving formatting like this until you print to screen. You can then use printf or sprintf to format the number how you want.

my $example = 12 - 4;
printf("%02d", $example);

Will print:

08

To save it in a string for later use sprintf:

my $example = 12 - 4;
$formatted = sprintf("%02d", $example);

print "$formatted\n";

If you need to fill decimal places use the following:

my $example = 12 - 4;
printf("%0.2f", $example);

will print:

8.00