The other question to ask is "What do I care?" Perl converts between numbers and strings based on operational context in a way that, in most cases, "does what you want":

c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le
"my $f = '360.000' + '-1.9003e-05';
 dd $f;
 ;;
 my $s = 360.000 . -1.9003e-05;
 dd $s;
"
359.999980997

"360-1.9003e-005"
[download]