I'd like to access and use unsigned int at the level of Perl. Ideally I would not need to employ XS or inline C. Put simply I'd like to add 1 to 1, without 1 being converted into a signed integer first.

Using Perl 5 I seem to be able to coerce a scalar into storing a UV type, but initial attempts to use it in any form appear to be subject to up/downgrading.

If I use an approach such as bounding a tied scalar as exampled in Intermediate Perl (O'Reilly), I feel this may be suitable for prototyping methodology of usage, but falls short of actually using the underlying unsigned int type.

This quickly boils down to a question about fundamentals, and I am not so concerned about there being any straight forward yes or no answer, (though a yes would be great). As I sense the very nature of Perl 5's dualvar probably does not allow this. But will I find that Perl 6 has the same issue, or would this be something that Perl 6 would happily enable for me?

Maybe there is some way I can do this but where I do need to delve into XS or maybe overloading? I have been hacking at this using the MvT (Monkey vs Typewriter) method a lot and have included my latest effort where I get Devel::Peek to display a UV type.

I have also been doing various MvT with vec,pack,printf functions My overall sense is that any outcome from this could serve as the basis for some very useful Perl/CompSci tutorials.

#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use vars q'$n';
use Devel::Peek;

#my $n = 4;
#&print_val;


sub print_val{

# my $n = shift;
 my $n = shift() || $n;
 print ' ', Dump $n;
 print "###\n";

}



 $n =  ~( 1 );
 $n <<= 30;
#&print_val($n);
print "left shift 30\n";
&print_val;


 $n =  ~( 1 );
 $n <<= 31;
print "left shift 31\n";
&print_val;

#=head1 powers

#my
 $n =  ~(
 (2**32)
 -(
   (2**32)-1
 #   -(
 #      (2**30) + ((2**29)-1)
 #    )
 )
);


print "base 2 combos\n";
&print_val;

#=cut

$n+=$n;
print "self addition assignment\n";
&print_val;

#=cut
[download]

I have asked as SoPW, as there may be some simple approach that I am just missing.