Just use it as a number, like $var + 100 or $var == 6 as long as you do that, perl will treat it as a number and ignore leading zero's, if you do $var eq 6 it will not remove zeros, because eq is for strings... to just convert it directly to a number for peace of mind you can do $var += 0 which will turn 00005.67 into 5.67 in $var.
                - Ant