You could use a function like this:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
sub cut_fill ($$);
my $word = 'someword';
print "'", cut_fill($word, 5), "'\n";
print "'", cut_fill($word, 10), "'\n";
sub cut_fill ($$) {
my ($word, $length) = @_;
if (length($word) >= $length) {
$word = substr($word, 0, $length);
}
else {
$word .= ' 'x($length - length($word));
}
return $word;
}
Update: Or you can use sprintf of corse, as shown in the solutions below. But if you need something more special, a function like this will be handy.