So, I am back doing some perl again for the first time in a long time. Anyhow, I ran into a problem while trying to zero fill a number. I want to ensure that the number is 14 characters long with leading zeros to fill in any missing characters. I then wrote the following script to demonstrate the issue I'm having: 
#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $var1 = "002130013809";
my $var2 = "002150004800";

my $var1alt = sprintf("%014d", $var1);
my $var2alt = sprintf("%014d", $var2);

print "$var1 => $var1alt\n";
print "$var2 => $var2alt\n";

[download]
I expected to get this output:
002130013809 => 00002130013809
002150004800 => 00002150004800

but instead I get this:
002130013809 => 00002130013809
002150004800 => -0002144962496

The first number gets it right, but the second is way off and places a minus sign in front. What gives?

Thanks for your help.

-Matt

In reply to sprintf zero-fill issue by mlong

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