I want to us a perl inline command ... in the UNIX shell script (if possible) in order to make those field conversions.

In terms of using Perl in the context of shell scripting, it's often easier (IMHO) to just put the intended Perl operation(s) into an executable perl file, and invoke that file as a shell command, rather than trying to shoe-horn a perl "one-liner" into the shell script.

Numerous advantages of that approach:

• You'll probably figure out numerous ways for the perl script to take over a larger portion of what the shell script needs to do (and the perl script will be more compact, more flexible/adaptable, easier to read and maintain, etc).

• You can easily include POD in the perl script that will be cleaner and easier to read than the typical comments in a shell script. The effectiveness of any source code can be judged by the quality and accessibility of its documentation.

• You can do more error checking, and better warnings/error messages, more easily in Perl than in a shell script.

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