my $astring = "some string";
my $svptr = (\$astring)+0;
#works on 32 bit ONLY
my $packesvptr = pack('L', $svptr);
my $svbinary = unpack('P[L4]', $packesvptr);
my $packedPV = substr($svbinary, 4*3, 4);
print "\"".unpack('p', $packedPV)."\"";#null terminated, use 'P[12345]' for binary data
print "\n\nExample 2\n\n";
$packedPV = pack('p', $astring );
print "\"".unpack('p', $packedPV)."\"";