packing float as network long:
 +-----+    +-----------+    +------------+
 |float|--->|native long|--->|network long|
 +-----+    +-----------+    +------------+

 and unpacking network long back to float
 +------------+    +-----------+    +-----+
 |network long|--->|native long|--->|float|
 +------------+    +-----------+    +-----+

##</code><code>##

use strict;
use IO::File;

savefloat();  # <--- this is run from Sun E10000
readfloat();  # <--- this is run from Windows XP

sub savefloat {
  my $original_float = 1234.5678;
  my $network_long = pack 'N', unpack 'L', pack 'f', $original_float;
  my $f = new IO::File "NetworkLong.txt", "w";
  print $f $network_long, "\n";
}

sub readfloat {
  my $f = new IO::File "NetworkLong.txt", "r";
  chomp(my $network_long = <$f>);
  my $float = unpack 'f', pack 'L', unpack 'N', $network_long;
  printf "%0.4f\n", $float;
}

##</code><code>##

On SUN: float->network_long->disk
On WindowsXP: disk->network_long->float

##</code><code>##

On WindowsXP: float->network_long->disk
On SUN: disk->network_long->float