use strict; use warnings 'all'; my $data = "d:\\test%00two"; print $data,"\n"; $data =~ s/%([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C", hex($1))/eg; print $data,"\n"; my $bob; open FILE, "<$data" or die "Cannot open $data: $!\n"; { local $/; $bob = ; } close FILE; print $bob;