I believe you're asking for

say for unpack "d*", $contents;
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unpack

Mini-Tutorial: Formats for Packing and Unpacking Numbers

It's a series of bytes. This powershell works:

$len = $bytes.Count/8
for( $i = 0 ; $i -lt $len ; $i++) {
  [System.BitConverter]::ToDouble($bytes, $i * 8 )
}
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ok? Did you try what I provided? I still believe you're asking for

say for unpack "d*", $contents;        # To print them as you were.
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my @numbers = unpack "d*", $contents;  # To store them in an array.
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unpack

Mini-Tutorial: Formats for Packing and Unpacking Numbers

Yes, I think, what you are looking for is $number = unpack('d', $bytes);

If $bytes hold 8 bytes, then unpack will convert that to a number.

sub _read_binary {
  my ($fh) = @_;
  barf "bigfloat" unless(length(pack("f", 1)) == 4);
  # TODO try to read part name from header (up to \0)
  seek($fh, 80, 0);
  my $buf; read($fh, $buf, 4) or warn "EOF?"; my $triangles = unpack('
+L<', $buf);
  my $bytes = 50 * $triangles; # norm+3vertices * 3float + short with 
+length of extra
  my $bytespdl = zeroes PDL::byte(), 50, $triangles;
  my $bytesread = read($fh, ${$bytespdl->get_dataref}, $bytes);
  barf "Tried to read $bytes but only got $bytesread" if $bytesread !=
+ $bytes;
  $bytespdl->upd_data;
  my $floatpdl = zeroes PDL::float(), 3, 4, $triangles;
  ${$floatpdl->get_dataref} = ${$bytespdl->slice('0:47')->get_dataref}
+;
  $floatpdl->upd_data;
  $floatpdl->type->bswap->($floatpdl) if isbigendian();
  # TODO check that the unit normal is within a thousandth of a radian
  # (0.001 rad is ~0.06deg)
  _as_ndarray($floatpdl->slice(':,1:3'));
}
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my @doubles = unpack "d*", $contents;
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