below is my code:

#!/bin/perl
use v5.10;

  say "Please enter a few lines of text. Press crtl-D when finished";
  @text_lines = <STDIN>;
  chomp($text_lines);
  say "Please enter the width of the column: ";
  $column = <STDIN>;
  $ruler = "1234567890";
  say "$ruler" x $column;

  foreach (@text_lines) {
    #printf "%${column}s\n", $_;
    printf  "%${column}s\n", $_;      
  }
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Here is my output:

Please enter a few lines of text. Press crtl-D when finished

rrrrr eeeeee tyyyyy

Please enter the width of the column: 10 1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890

%10

s

%10

s

%10

s

I copied the code straight out of Learning Perl (7th edition). I typed in 3 lines of text as well as the width I wanted. The output should have been the repeating numbers, (1-0), and then below the text lines with aligned columns, (width called in by <STDIN>. I guess it worked ok for the authors ... not so much for me though .... Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, Catfish