If you want to transpose them into ASCII tokens that can be translated back as necessary, here is a simple script demonstrating one possible schema:

open my $fh, "<$file";
read $fh, my $data, -s $file;
my $transposed = '';

for ( my $l=length( $data ), my $i = 0; $i < $l; $i++ ) {
    my $chr = substr( $data, $i, 1 );
    my $ascii = ord( $chr );

    if ( $chr eq "\n" ) {
        $transposed .= $chr;
        next;
    }

    if ( ( $ascii < 32 ) or ( $ascii > 126 ) ) {
        # e.g. ctrlc becomes '\003'
        $transposed .= '\' . Lzro3( $ascii );
    }
    else {
        # escape backslash to make it easier to translate back again
        ( $chr eq '\' ) and $chr .= '\';
        $transposed .= $chr;
    }
}

sub Lzro3 {
    my $n = shift;
    ( $n < 10 ) and return '00' . $n;
    ( $n < 100 ) and return '0' . $n;
    return $n;
}
[download]

And to translate back again, just look for the backslash which will always be followed by either the three digit ascii code or a backslash.

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.