# this would be much easier in Perl 6

sub unpack_fields {
	my $record = shift;

	my @var;

	my $template = join " ", map {
		my ($field, $width) = splice @_, 0, 2;
		push @var, $field if ref $field;
		( ref $field ? 'A' : 'x' ) . $width;
	} 0 .. $#_ / 2;

	my @value = unpack $template, $record;

	${ shift @var } = shift @value while @value;
}