Tough to beat JavaFan's, but here's a fairly plain-English method: 

use strict;
use warnings;

my $x      = 4;  # width
my $y      = 2;  # number of "hollow" rows

my $solid  = '*' x $x . $/;
my $hollow = '*' . ' ' x ($x-2) . '*' . $/;

print $solid,
     ($hollow) x $y,
      $solid;

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In reply to Re: Printing a hollow square of Asterisks by hbm
in thread Printing a hollow square of Asterisks by Rafter

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