Well,

my @bytes = unpack "C*", $a;
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will get you an array with (0x31) in it. If you do the same to $b you can then add them together byte by byte in parallel, ensuring that no single value is greater than 255. When you are done:

my $result = pack "C*", @newbytes;
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will give you a single string. Of course, this string is likely to be fairly un-terminal-able. {grin}

-- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker
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