The sprintf() function doesn't store anything. It takes in a set of input parameters and returns an output. It's a transformer, not a storehouse. You have to tell it where to store the result.

This means that you could do the following:

my @array_of_unformatted_numbers = (
    2, 5.3, 56.789,
);

my @array_of_formatted_numbers = map {
    sprintf( "%0.2d", $_ )
} @array_of_unformatted_numbers;

foreach my $formatted_number ( @array_of_formatted_numbers ) {
    print "The formatted number is $formatted_number.\n";
}
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Your question is very confusing. Variables can't be stored in a function, for starters. (Well, there are closures, but let's avoid advanced topics of no immediate relevance.) Maybe one of the following snippets will answer your question:

# Modifies @array in-place.
foreach (@array) {
   $_ = sprintf($format, $_);
}
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# Copies to a second array while formatting.
my @formatted = map { sprintf($format, $_) } @array;
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# Same as last, but without using "map".
my @formatted;
for (0..$#array) {
   $formatted[$_] = sprintf($format, $array[$_]);
}
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Does that help?

To print the pre-formatted data, simply use the following:

foreach (@formatted) {
   print($_, "\n");
}
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Reading this question in the context of having read Why SprintF? it occurs to me that you're talking about using sprintf to create a string that you then store in a scalar variable. ...as in my $variable = sprintf ..... (where '......' represents the rest of the parameter list). Ok, that's been covered in the previous question. So now on to the current question; can sprintf be used to store formatted data into in array so that as you loop you're able to iterate over this array of sprintf-formatted data? Yes. Here are a couple ways:

# Here's one using 'push':
my @array;
push @array, sprintf "%2d", $info;
push @array, sprintf "%3f", $moreinfo;

# Here's another way:
my @array;
$array[0] = sprintf "%2d", $info;
$array[1] = sprintf "%2s", $moreinfo;

# And now you can iterate over the array:
foreach my $item ( @array ) {
    print $item, "\n";
}
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