pack

NAME

pack - convert a list into a binary representation


SYNOPSIS

pack TEMPLATE,LIST


DESCRIPTION

Takes an array or list of values and packs it into a binary structure, returning the string containing the structure. The TEMPLATE is a sequence of characters that give the order and type of values, as follows:

Each letter may optionally be followed by a number which gives a repeat count. With all types except ``a'', ``A'', ``b'', ``B'', ``h'' and ``H'', and ``P'' the pack function will gobble up that many values from the LIST. A * for the repeat count means to use however many items are left. The ``a'' and ``A'' types gobble just one value, but pack it as a string of length count, padding with nulls or spaces as necessary. (When unpacking, ``A'' strips trailing spaces and nulls, but ``a'' does not.) Likewise, the ``b'' and ``B'' fields pack a string that many bits long. The ``h'' and ``H'' fields pack a string that many nybbles long. The ``P'' packs a pointer to a structure of the size indicated by the length. Real numbers (floats and doubles) are in the native machine format only; due to the multiplicity of floating formats around, and the lack of a standard ``network'' representation, no facility for interchange has been made. This means that packed floating point data written on one machine may not be readable on another - even if both use IEEE floating point arithmetic (as the endian-ness of the memory representation is not part of the IEEE spec). Note that Perl uses doubles internally for all numeric calculation, and converting from double into float and thence back to double again will lose precision (i.e. unpack(``f'', pack(``f'', $foo) ) will not in general equal $foo).

Examples:

$foo = pack("cccc",65,66,67,68); # foo eq "ABCD" $foo = pack("c4",65,66,67,68); # same thing $foo = pack("ccxxcc",65,66,67,68); # foo eq "AB\0\0CD" $foo = pack("s2",1,2); # "\1\0\2\0" on little-endian # "\0\1\0\2" on big-endian $foo = pack("a4","abcd","x","y","z"); # "abcd" $foo = pack("aaaa","abcd","x","y","z"); # "axyz" $foo = pack("a14","abcdefg"); # "abcdefg\0\0\0\0\0\0\0" $foo = pack("i9pl", gmtime); # a real struct tm (on my system anyway) sub bintodec { unpack("N", pack("B32", substr("0" x 32 . shift, -32))); }

The same template may generally also be used in the unpack function.