I am trying to unpack type, length, value data packed as follows:

1 byte as 'type', 1 bytes as 'length', length-2 bytes of data

The length field includes the first 2 bytes, so its value is 2 greater than the length of the value.. Is there a more direct way to unpack length-2 bytes into the value? in the code below, I append 2 bytes of data to the end, read 2 extra bytes, then chop them afterwards.

my $inputString = "\x03\x04Hi\x43\x08Hello!";
my %myDict = unpack("(CC/AX2)*", $inputString . "00");
chop(%myDict); chop(%myDict);

print "$myDict{0x03}\n";  # "Hi"
print "$myDict{0x43}\n";  # "Hello!"

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In reply to unpack less than indicated length by paulrh

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