c:\@Work\Perl\monks>perl -wMstrict -MData::Dump -le "my $p = pack 'C*', (65, 66, 0x43, ord('D'), 0b01000101); print qq{'$p'}; ;; my @u = unpack 'C*', $p; dd \@u; " 'ABCDE' [65 .. 69]