I've just written perl program to access metastock files. Metastock data files doesn't use IEEE Floating Point Format. They use MS Floating. I've implemented function to convert MSBIN -> IEEE (Only 4 bytes float). OK These is a code. 
open(FP,"f20.dat");      # Open MetaStock DATA File :>
read (FP, $buf, 0x1c);   # Skip header for 7 fields
$i = 0;
while (!eof(FP)) {
        read(FP, $buf, 0x1c); # Fetch 7 fields data 
        ($date, $open, $high, $low, $close, $volume, $opt)
 = unpack("A4 A4 A4 A4 A4 A4 A4", $buf);

## Although they are float but I fetch them as strings.

        $date = mem2date($date);
        $open = mem2date($open);
        $high = mem2date($high);
        $low = mem2date($low);
        $close = mem2date($close);
        $volume = mem2date($volume);
        print "$date $open $high $low $close $volume\n";
        ++$i;
        last if ($i > 10); ### I want see only first 10 records.
}

close(FP);
#######################################
sub mem2date {
        my $mem = $_[0];
        my ($a, $b, $c, $d) = unpack ("C C C C", $mem);

#   /* MS Binary Format                         */
#   /* byte order =>    m3 | m2 | m1 | exponent */
#   /* m1 is most significant byte => sbbb|bbbb */
#   /* m3 is the least significant byte         */
#   /*      m = mantissa byte                   */
#   /*      s = sign bit                        */
#   /*      b = bit                             */
#   sign = msbin[2] & 0x80;      /* 1000|0000b  */
#   /* IEEE Single Precision Float Format       */
#   /*    m3        m2        m1     exponent   */
#   /* mmmm|mmmm mmmm|mmmm emmm|mmmm seee|eeee  */
#   /*          s = sign bit                    */
#   /*          e = exponent bit                */
#   /*          m = mantissa bit                */

        my ($msexp, $man, $sign, $iexp, $newc, $newd);
        $msexp = $d;
        $man = $c & 0x7f;
        $sign = $c & 0x80;

        $iexp = $msexp - 2; 
## This line is very necessary because MS is bias 128 but IEEE is bias
+ 127

        $newd = ($iexp >> 1) | $sign;
        $newc = ($iexp << 7) | $man;

        $c = $newc;
        $d = $newd;

        return unpack("f",pack("CCCC",$a, $b, $c, $d));
}
--- End of Sample Code ---

[download]
If you want more information about IEEE Floating Point format please visit

http://www.psc.edu/general/software/packages/ieee/ieee.html

But MS Floating Point format is hard to find. I read from

http://community.borland.com/article/0,1410,16431,00.html

Sorry for my wrong grammar and poor english.

In reply to Converting Floating Point MS to IEEE by bream

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