In perl you don't need to force anything to be a number. Use it like a number and it will behave like a number, use it like a string and it will behave like a string.

print "1 + " . 1 . " = " , eval ( "1 + " . 1 );

cheers

tachyon

s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print

Well, there's How do I determine whether a scalar is a number/whole/integer/float?