Hi Andrew, I think your approach should work fine as long as you put your data into a standard format. Perl doesn't differentiate between strings or numbers.
A few suggestions: 1. encapsulate this code into a generic function, or method if you're doing OOP 2. use a constant or a variable for the offset instead of hard-coding the value (-5) e.g., sub get_offset_value { my ($number, $offset) = @_; die "Invalid offset - $offset" unless $offset =~ /^\d+$/; $offset++; $value = sprintf("%8.2f",$value); my $offset_value = substr($value, -$offset); $offset_value = sprintf("%8.2f",$offset_value); return $offset_value; } Good luck, William -- Lead Developer Knowmad Services Inc. || Internet Applications & Database Integration http://www.knowmad.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]