#!/usr/bin/perl -w use strict; my $Test = "5.ae.20.b.1c.7"; print "05.ae.20.0b.1c.07\n"; # A feeble try with pack/unpack, that dosen't work # print join( ".", unpack( "H2" x 6, pack( "H2" x 6, split( /\./, $Test )))), "\n"; # Now a regex which uses the zero-width lookbehind and works # the "defined $1 ? "0$1" : "" part is ugly, I admit this ... # but I see no other way around it ;-) $Test =~ s/(?(?