$ perl -le'print "x" x ($ARGV[0]-1)' 100 | perl -le'print length <>'
100

$ perl -le'print "x" x ($ARGV[0]-1)' 1000 | perl -le'print length <>'
1000

$ perl -le'print "x" x ($ARGV[0]-1)' 10000 | perl -le'print length <>'
10000

$ perl -le'print "x" x ($ARGV[0]-1)' 1000000 | perl -le'print length <>'
1000000