First of all ... have a look at this excellent tutorial by reptile - Definitely worth a ++ ... and read some of the details on integer ranges in Programming Perl or any other good Perl reference
 
With regard to your problem ... have a look at this code and output ...
 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

my ($value) = 12345678901234567890;

select (STDOUT);
print "Output using sprint and %d := ", sprintf("%d", $value), "\n";
print "Output using sprint and %D (equivalent to %ld) := ", sprintf("%
+D", $value), "\n";
print "Output using sprint and %f := ", sprintf("%f", $value), "\n";
print "Output using sprint and %.0f := ", sprintf("%.0f", $value), "\n
+";

exit 0;

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And the output from this code ...
 
Output using sprint and %d := -1
Output using sprint and %D (equivalent to %ld) := -1
Output using sprint and %f := 12345678901234567168.000000
Output using sprint and %.0f := 12345678901234567168

[download]

 
Ooohhh, Rob no beer function well without!

In reply to Re: Displaying big numbers as decimal by rob_au
in thread Displaying big numbers as decimal by Anonymous Monk

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