How to use sprintf to add zeros to a variable? (ie make 1 become 01)

[Mizugori]

I am trying to compare a timestamp to a variable which has been set by three drop down menus, from which the user picked a month, day, and year. now my code does this:

my $date = $year.'-'.$month.'-'.$day;

The problem is, timestamps have a zero in the tens place if the number is smaller than 10, so 1 shows up as 10. This causes a problem because the timestamp

2005-01-27

will not match even if the user has selected January 27, 2005, because my $date will be set to:

2005-1-27

I know I should be able to use sprintf to pad $date with zeros, but the syntax is bogging me down.. can anyone help me??

thanks!!

 

[brigmar]

my $date = printf "%4d-%02d-%02d", $year, $month, $day;

 

[MillerH]

That's sprintf brigmar

[url=http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/my.html][black][b]my[/b][/black][/url] [blue]$date[/blue] = [url=http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/sprintf.html][black][b]sprintf[/b][/black][/url] [red]"[/red][purple]%4d-%02d-%02d[/purple][red]"[/red], [blue]$year[/blue], [blue]$month[/blue], [blue]$day[/blue][red];[/red]

- Miller

 

[Mizugori]

thanks guys it works!