thank you your code is much more eloquent than mine...but I think I am learning - do you have any suggestions as to why the phone number is only printing out a "+" here is that code again:

#Get the phone number and check to make sure that it contains only dig
+its and the length is 10

while($phone =~ /D/ || $len !=10){
 print "Please enter your 10 digit phone number:";
 $phone = <STDIN>;
 chomp($phone);
 #Find out the length of the string
 $len=($phone=~tr/[0-9]/[0-9]/);
}

#Using regular expressions, break down the phone number into first num
+ber the
#next three digits and then the next three digits and so on. Each digi
+ts will be
#stored in $1 $2 $3 and $4.

$phone=~/(d)(ddd)(ddd)(ddd)/;
$formattedphone="+".$1." ".$2." ".$3." ".$4;
[download]

thanks