Perl doesn't have a data type with that behaviour, but you could try something like:

use strict;
my ($len, $str) = (5, "someword");
$str = sprintf "%-${len}.${len}s", $str;
print ">>$str<<\n";

[download]
s^^unp(;75N=&9I<V@`ack(u,^;s|\(.+\`|"$`$'\"$&\"\)"|ee;/m.+h/&&print$&;

In reply to Re: fixed length string by muntfish
in thread fixed length string by shilpam

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