use strict; use warnings; sub chunk_array { my ($n, @vals) = @_; my $str; my $i = 0; for my $v (@vals) { ++$i; $str .= $v . ( ($i % $n) ? " " : "\n" ); } substr($str, -1, 1) = "\n"; return $str; } my $v1 = chunk_array(3, "a", "bb", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g", "h"); $v1 eq "a bb c\nd e f\ng h\n" or die "error: '$v1'\n"; print $v1; my $v2 = chunk_array(3, "a", "bb", "c", "d", "e", "f"); $v2 eq "a bb c\nd e f\n" or die "error: '$v2'\n"; print $v2;