G'day ibm1620,

You can achieve that with this code: 

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use strict;
use warnings;

my $scale
    = '1.......10........20........30........40........50........60';
my $max_width = length($scale) - 1;
my $long_string = q{The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog};
my @records = (
    [qw{79.3       2022   1    8}, $long_string],
    [qw{394571       22  10   81}, $long_string],
    [qw{123456.78 12345 123 1234}, $long_string],
);

my $sprintf_fmt = '%.2f %d %d %d  %n';
my $printf_fmt = "%s%.*s|\n";

print "$scale\n";

for my $record (@records) {
    my $used_so_far;
    printf $printf_fmt,
        sprintf($sprintf_fmt, @{$record}[0..3], $used_so_far),
        $max_width - $used_so_far, $record->[4];
}

[download]

Output:

1.......10........20........30........40........50........60
79.30 2022 1 8  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog|
394571.00 22 10 81  The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy|
123456.78 12345 123 1234  The quick brown fox jumps over th|

[download]

Update: I've just noticed the '%.2f %d %d %d  %n' format would've been better as '%.2f %d/%d/%d  %n' to align with the original OP code. However, it's purely cosmetic and doesn't affect the functionality or the technique being demonstrated.

— Ken

In reply to Re: How to use sprintf %n formatting pattern by kcott
in thread How to use sprintf %n formatting pattern by ibm1620

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