http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=1225073

arblargan has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Howdy Monks! I've got a question about what goes on behind the scenes when the function unpack is called. I'm trying to understand the results of a certain function for a script I inherited, but I can't figure out how the result is being calculated by Perl. See below for a snippet of the function.

my $input = 0x916CD; #595661 my $unpacked = unpack "V", $input; print($unpacked); >>909457717 (0x36353935)

I just can't seem to figure out, by hand, how Perl is unpacking the decimal value into that number. Can someone shed some light on what goes on behind the scenes in the unpack function that might be able to help me understand? Thanks!