I get mangled output with first printf but the second printf below works. Notice that I put the phone number last in the second one? Based on tests, if I print anything after the phone number it results in corruption. 
printf "Dialing %s of %s on %s: %s, %s, %s\n",
       $index, $total, $ref->{'datetime'}, $ref->{'host'}, $ref->{'pho
+ne'}, $ref->{'description'};

printf "Dialing %s of %s on %s: %s, %s, %s\n",
       $index, $total, $ref->{'datetime'}, $ref->{'description'}, $ref
+->{'host'}, $ref->{'phone'};

[download]
Output (mangled first) looks like: 
, UK Routersf 16 on Fri Jan  4 18:44:40 2002: UK9Z, 011441234567890
Dialing 01 of 16 on Fri Jan  4 18:41:03 2002: UK Routers, UK9Z, 011441234567890
I even tried print "RJL:/$ref->{'phone'}\n"; with similar mangled results.

The phone number above was altered, but the real number does start with 01144. I also printed the phone number using %#vx and did not see any "hidden" special characters.

I am using the perl listed below on an Ultra-10 running Solaris 8 with Maintenance Update 6. 

This is perl, v5.6.1 built for sun4-solaris-thread-multi
(with 1 registered patch, see perl -V for more detail)

Copyright 1987-2001, Larry Wall

Binary build 630 provided by ActiveState Tool Corp. http://www.ActiveState.com
Built 23:31:40 Oct 31 2001
Any ideas what is happening? If I was going to guess the phone number is being treated as an Octal number. If so, why would it in this context (or how can I escape it)? And why does it still print correctly (shouldn't I see 44... instead)? -- Argel

Edit kudra, 2002-01-10 Replaced some pre with code

In reply to Mangled print output -- any ideas why? by Argel

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