Re^2: ActivePerl on Win32 storing integers as strings?

[LonelyPilgrim]

Thanks. I think so. So the issue is that unpack takes a string as an argument (which I now see on the description in perlfunc), so it's unpack itself that forces the number to be interpreted as a string? Packing it explicitly as an integer gives it an integer to unpack -- though pack, according to perlfunc, also produces a string. I guess I just lack a basic understanding about how Perl stores data. My understanding of data types is essentially C-centric (char or int or short or string).

[BrowserUk]

You're almost there.

As you say, unpack takes a string as its argument. If you supply an integer, then Perl quietly converts it to a (human readable) string for you, just as it does when do print 0; It 'ascii-ises' the number. In C terms, Perl does an itoa() on it.

Conversely, when you pack the number, the string returned contains the machine readable, binary representation embedded within a string. In C terms, it is like doing:

int i = 0;

printf( "%s", (char*)&i );

[LonelyPilgrim]

Thanks a lot; I think I've got it.