http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1013465


in reply to getting wrong value

printf returns 1 for a successful print, which is what you say happens. You probably want sprintf (note leading 's'), which returns a string.

Update: 

>perl -wMstrict -le
"my $line  = 55473;
 my $line2 = sprintf '%#x', $line;
 printf qq{\$line  is '%#x' \n}, $line;
 print  qq{\$line2 is '$line2'};
"
$line  is '0xd8b1'
$line2 is '0xd8b1'

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Re^2: getting wrong value
by ggrise (Initiate) on Jan 15, 2013 at 23:01 UTC
    Thanks, that works. however if printf will print to STDOUT, why can't I get it to print to $line2 ?
[reply]

      You can (since 5.8; see open, search for 'scalar'): 

      >perl -wMstrict -le
"my $scalar_as_file;
 ;;
 open my $fh_scalar, '>', \$scalar_as_file or die qq{opening: $!};
 printf $fh_scalar q{xxx :%#x: yyy}, 55473;
 close $fh_scalar;
 ;;
 print qq{scalar as file: '$scalar_as_file'};
"
scalar as file: 'xxx :0xd8b1: yyy'

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