... not sure how Perl would handle an exponential value...

Further to kennethk's post: In almost as many characters as are quoted above, Spooky could have actually seen how Perl handles an exponential value. Sorry if the following rather pounds this into the ground:

>perl -wMstrict -le
"print 3.34e-10;
 print '3.34e-10';
 print 1 + '3.34e-10';
 printf qq{%15.15e \n}, 3.34e-10;
 print 'etc...';
"
3.34e-010
3.34e-10
1.000000000334
3.340000000000000e-010
etc...
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