If this is for display purposes, you should probably use %x which returns the date in a locale-dependant format.

use POSIX qw(strftime);
my $todays_date = strftime '%x', localtime;
[download]

For me, it would display 2005/01/02 for January 2nd. For you, it will display 1.2.2005 if you configured your OS to match your preference.