c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my $octetstr = qq{\xab\xcd\x00\x1d\x94\x56}; ;; my @ra = unpack 'H*', $octetstr; dd \@ra; ;; @ra = unpack '(H2)*', $octetstr; dd \@ra; ;; @ra = unpack '(H4)*', $octetstr; dd \@ra; " ["abcd001d9456"] ["ab", "cd", "00", "1d", 94, 56] ["abcd", "001d", 9456]