I need to somehow get the byte values into an array, but I only know how to read strings

Strings are strings of bytes. It might help you to sometimes think of them as strings of characters (particularly when you are dealing with multibyte characters) but, when it comes right down to it, when you read a string you are reading bytes.

I hardcoded some of the elements as 'a'. Will this give me the ascii value for that caracter as I expect, or does it not work that way in perl? (I am more used to C++)

Yes. An 'a' is an 'a' is an 'a'. What you might be missing is that perl doesn't really have the notion of ints like C or C++. A number in perl is really a string. If you want to print the ascii value for 'a' in perl, printf("%d\n", 'a'); won't work like you expect. You'll want to use ord() or unpack() to do it. So, print ord('a'), "\n" would do what you want.

-sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";

In reply to Re: Comparing the bytes of a file by sauoq
in thread Comparing the bytes of a file by Monolith-0

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.