fixed-sized output records

Hi.  I've had a feature in mind for a while now, but I missed my chance to
make it an RFC.  I was told that I could still present it by using this
list, so here goes.
 
There is a (relatively) new feature of the $/ variable which allows you to
set it to a numeric reference, i.e:
 
$/ = \80;
 
This will allow you to read fixed-length records from a file, instead of
delimited records.  The above example causes every read from a filehandle to
read exactly 80 bytes.  I liked this feature as soon as a I heard about it,
but it always bothered me that it was not symmetrically applied to $\.  In
other words, you can't say:
 
$\ = \80;
 
to make your *output* records (i.e. "print") fixed-length.  The feature I
propose would be to allow $\ to be set to a numeric reference, and if it is,
to pad any output record shorter than the specified number with spaces on
the end, to make it exactly that size and to truncate any out record longer
than the specified size.
 
It just seems logical that if there is direct support for *reading* fixed
length records, there should be analogous support for *writing* them as
well.
 
Thanks for your consideration.
 
Tzadik
 

• fixed-sized output records by Tzadik Vanderhoof
• Re: fixed-sized output records by Aaron Sherman
• catching warnings by David Whipp
• RE: catching warnings by Sterin, Ilya
• RE: catching warnings by David Whipp