'scuse my ignorance, but whats the difference between a "long long unsigned 64-bit value" and "An unsigned quad value"?

From perlfunc:pack

    q   A signed quad (64-bit) value.
    Q   An unsigned quad value.
          (Quads are available only if your system supports 64-bit
           integer values _and_ if Perl has been compiled to support t
+hose.
           Causes a fatal error otherwise.)
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Because it doesn't accept a single number as an argument? (It's for IP addresses)

Plus, it isn't even compiled in on my system.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

Because it doesn't accept a single number as an argument? (It's for IP addresses)

I don't understand what you mean by this?

By way of recompense for my lack of understanding, you might find this bit from the 5.8 INSTALL doc interesting/useful?

=head2 64 bit support.

If your platform does not have 64 bits natively, but can simulate them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>, you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.

There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure -Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.

The C<use64bitint> does only as much as is required to get 64-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint> does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it might, but it doesn't have to): the C<use64bitint> means that you will be able to have 64 bits wide scalar values.

The C<use64bitall> goes all the way by attempting to switch also integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit aware.

Which if I read it right, indicates that you can get 64-integers in perl even on 32-bit platforms as of 5.8.

You would have to re-compile to get it of course.

---

Examine what is said, not who speaks.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness." -David Dunham
"When I'm working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." -Richard Buckminster Fuller

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.