#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my @a = ('M','D','C','L','X','V','I'); my $out = ''; my $n = 0; my $b = 'XIV'; my @tmp = split(//,$b); for (my $i = 0; $i < @a; $i++) { if ( $a[$i] eq uc($tmp[$n]) ) { $out .= $a[$i]; $n++; } else { $out .= '.'; } } print $out; exit;