I agree that format is what seems to be asked for by the assignment. But Perl has pretty much moved away from format and I'm strongly tempted to sabotage the question by suggesting alternate ways of solving the problem. There are many domain specific formatting modules around now that are a lot more appropriate to use.

lollipop7081 should be aware that completing the assignment using some technique other than format however may result in a lower mark, especially if a lot more code needs to be written to achieve the goal.