another way to do it:

sub three {
    my $number = "213";
    return '0' x (9 - length($number)) . $number;
}

[download]

Update: you might want to test/benchmark this before thinking it is "good"

In reply to Re: sprintf vs. substr (for zero-padded values) by fglock
in thread sprintf vs. substr (for zero-padded values) by Theseus

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