Aside from the fact that N is suppose to take an unsigned integer,

Hm. pack takes a bunch of bits and interprets them in whatever way you tell if to:

print unpack 'f', pack 'N', unpack 'N', pack 'f', 3.141592653589793238
+4626433832795;;
3.14159274101257
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your very question demonstrates that -1 and 0xFFFF_FFFF pack differently

Que! Care to explain what you think you mean by that?

Neither I nor Perl can see any difference:

print pack('N', -1) eq pack('N', 0xffffffff) ? 'Same' : 'Different';;
Same
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pack takes a bunch of bits and interprets them in whatever way you tell if to

That's what unpack does, as you demonstrated. pack, on the other hand, is very specific about what it takes.

Passing negative numbers where an unsigned one is expected currently performs a C cast, but it's undocumented behaviour.

Neither I nor Perl can see any difference

To see the difference between using 0xFFFF_FFFF and -1, you just had to substitute 0xFFFF_FFFF for -1 instead of writing an entirely new program. Try again.

Still no difference!:

print pack('N', -1) eq pack('N', 0xffff_ffff) ? 'Same' : 'Different';;
Same

print pack('N', -1) eq pack('N', 0xFFFF_FFFF) ? 'Same' : 'Different';;
Same
[download]

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