Trying to guess at the bigger picture, you might also be interested in sprintf

printf("[%5d]\n", 123);   # Prints [  123]
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and Perl6::Form (it brings Perl 6's forms to Perl 5).

use Perl6::Form;

print form
    " =================================== ",
    "| NAME     |    AGE     | ID NUMBER |",
    "|----------+------------+-----------|",
    "| {<<<<<<} | {||||||||} | {>>>>>>>} |",
       $name,     $age,        $ID,
    "|===================================|",
    "| COMMENTS                          |",
    "|-----------------------------------|",
    "| {[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[} |",
       $comments,
    " =================================== ";
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