c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -le
"my @names = qw(A AB ABC ABCD);
 ;;
 for my $name (@names) {
   my $s = sprintf '%4s', sprintf '%-3s', $name;
   print qq{'$s'};
   }
"
' A  '
' AB '
' ABC'
'ABCD'