It doesn't really matter whether code is "Perlish" as long as it's maintainable and it works - as determined by test cases! That'd be my main suggestion, Test::More and friends.

You could also look into using Perl's magic string increment, as mentioned by the other anon above.

Another interesting approach is the "odometer" analogy from Chapter 4 of Mark Jason Dominus' Higher-Order Perl - a highly enlightening book overall!