use 5.012; use warnings; my $width = 60 - 1; my $scale = '1.......10........20........30........40........50........60'; my $long_string = q{The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog}; my $short_string = q{lazy dog}; my $pat = "%.2f %d/%d/%d %s"; my @aoa = ( [ qw/79.3 2022 1 8 /, $long_string ], [ qw/394571 22 10 81 /, $long_string ], [ qw/123456.78 12345 123 1234 /, $long_string ], [ qw/79.3 2022 1 8 /, $short_string ], ); say $scale; for my $aref (@aoa) { printf "%.*s|\n" , $width => sprintf ($pat => @$aref) . " "x$width; }