$#      The output format for printed numbers.   This  vari-
             able is a half-hearted attempt to emulate awk's OFMT
             variable.  There are times, however,  when  awk  and
             perl  have  differing  notions  of  what  is in fact
             numeric.  Also, the initial value  is  %.20g  rather
             than  %.6g,  so you need to set $# explicitly to get
             awk's value.  (Mnemonic: # is the number sign.)