SPUG: pack and unpack

[Andrew Sweger]

On Wed, 27 Aug 2003, Richard Wood wrote:

> Surely there are many pack/unpack experts out there in SPUG-land.

There are, but they are few and far between. pack/unpack are a pair of the
more inscrutable functions built into perl. It's a down-and-dirty,
hands-on-the-metal kind of interface that just does not feel very
Perl-ish; a necessary evil, if you will. I typically surround code
containing these functions with a barricade of cinder block-like comments
(lines of #'s):

######################################################################
######################################################################
##### DANGER DANGER    -   Avert your eyes   -    DANGER DANGER ######
######################################################################
######################################################################

(Wait, an evil idea has just ignited in my brain. Must find extinguisher.)

-- 
Andrew B. Sweger -- The great thing about multitasking is that several
                                things can go wrong at once.