One way to do this is to use a Perl format. See the perlform manpage for details.

Here is a short example: 

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $width  = 80;
my $format = '@'. ('|' x $width) . "\n";


# Print a centred line using the format
#
formline($format, "This text is centred.");

print $^A; # Print the accumulator
$^A = '';  # Clear the accumulator


# Print some centred lines using the format
#
my @a = qw(A hat often beckons snowballs);

formline($format x @a, @a);
print $^A; # Print the accumulator
$^A = '';  # Clear the accumulator

__END__
Here is the output:

                              This text is centred.
                                        A
                                       hat
                                      often
                                     beckons
                                    snowballs

[download]

--
John.

In reply to Re: Formatting screen output by jmcnamara
in thread Formatting screen output by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.