$ cat 1129169.pl #!/usr/bin/env perl use 5.010; use strict; use warnings; sub dec_to_bin { my $dec = shift; print "$dec : "; unless( $dec =~ /^\d+$/ ){ say "Not a whole number!"; return; } my $x = 1; my $bin = ''; while(1){ my $bit = $dec & $x; $bin = ($bit ? 1 : 0) . $bin; $dec -= $bit; last unless $dec; $x <<= 1; } say $bin; } dec_to_bin($_) for @ARGV; $ perl 1129169.pl 0 1 4 255 65536 abc 0 : 0 1 : 1 4 : 100 255 : 11111111 65536 : 10000000000000000 abc : Not a decimal number!