Need to handle negative numbers as well. How about this?

#!/usr/bin/perl

my $value = .23456;
my $formatted = sprintf("%.3f", $value);
$formatted =~ s/([^0-9])0\./$1./;
print "$value => $formatted\n";

$value = $formatted = -.23456;
$formatted = sprintf("%.3f", $value);
$formatted =~ s/([^0-9])0\./$1./;
print "$value => $formatted\n";
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