note MeowChow Verrrry cool idea... this can actually come down to 56: <code> sub k { $_="000"|"@_";/495/?0:1+k(-($_=join'',sort/./g)+reverse) } </code> The interesting thing about this is that it's not the same as right-formatting the number via [sprintf], since the 0 goes to the back, but it doesn't matter because the digits are reordered anyway. <pre> <a href="/index.pl?node=MeowChow"> MeowChow </a> s aamecha.s a..a\u$&owag.print</pre> 89075 89100