what is actually stored in $a$i? Is it the string "123" or the number 123.0? And does it make any difference to the perl programmer?
Usually it doesn't matter - perl figures out how you want to interpret the value based on how you use it. For instance, if you write $x + 1, perl will convert $x to a number. If you write length($x), perl will interpret $x as a string, converting it from a number (either floating point or integer) if necessary.

If it does matter to you - for instance, if you need numbers to have a specific format - you can explicitly convert them to strings using something like sprintf().

In reply to Re: When does '123' become the number 123.0? by pc88mxer
in thread When does '123' become the number 123.0? by wa1ter

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