$ perl -E 'say join(" ", split /(..)/, "e58c97e4bab0") =~ s/^\s+//r' e5 8c 97 e4 ba b0 $ perl -E 'say join(" ", split /(..)/, "e58c97e4bab0") =~ s/^\s+//r =~ y/ / /rs' e5 8c 97 e4 ba b0