my $url = [ 2, "/home/user/sym_dir/%s_2013 'http://www.downloadsite.com/%s.dat'" ];

get_symbol_data($url);

sub get_symbol_data {
	my ($base_url) = @_;
	my ($repeats, $fmt_string) = @$base_url;

	my @sym_array = ('foo', 'bar', 'baz');
	for my $symbol (@sym_array) {
		my $url = sprintf($fmt_string, ( $symbol ) x $repeats);
		print $url, "\n";
	}
}