my $n1 = '-933'; my $n2 = '-1039'; my $dif = $n1 - $n2; print $dif . "\n"; #### C:> perl -v This is perl, v5.8.8 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread (with 50 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail) Binary build 820 [274739] provided by ActiveState