Format not adding to line when ending in spaces

[spudnic]

Greetings,

I'm having a problem using formats. The issue arises when the variable that is to be printed last in a line contains only spaces nothing is added to the end of the line. This variable on most rows will be something other than all spaces or it wouldn't be a problem. I must have these spaces as they are required for the parser to find something in those columns.

Example:

#!/usr/bin/perl

# This script is called format_test

format =
@<<<<@>>>
$field1,$field2
.

$field1 = "Hello";
$field2 = "    ";
write;

When you run

./format_test | wc -m

you get 6.

The parser freaks out if there is anything after where I need the spaces, so I can't force padding by sticking something in the next field.

Any suggestions? The parser is an old mainframe job, so getting it modified would be a big pain.

Thanks