#or, to be only slightly less ugly
sub rev_scalar {
   my $data = shift;
   my $i;

   for($i = 0; $i < int(length($$data)/2); $i++) {
     (substr($$data,$i,1),substr($$data,-($i+1),1) =
     (substr($$data,-($i+1),1)substr($$data,$i,1));
   }
}