Current Perl documentation can be found at perldoc.perl.org.

Here is our local, out-dated (pre-5.6) version:

This one will do it for you:

    sub commify {
        local $_  = shift;
        1 while s/^(-?\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/;
        return $_;
    }

    $n = 23659019423.2331;
    print "GOT: ", commify($n), "\n";

    GOT: 23,659,019,423.2331

You can't just:

    s/^(-?\d+)(\d{3})/$1,$2/g;

because you have to put the comma in and then recalculate your position.

Alternatively, this commifies all numbers in a line regardless of whether they have decimal portions, are preceded by + or -, or whatever:

    # from Andrew Johnson <ajohnson@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca>
    sub commify {
       my $input = shift;
        $input = reverse $input;
        $input =~ s<(\d\d\d)(?=\d)(?!\d*\.)><$1,>g;
        return reverse $input;
    }