This does seem a little strange and the behaviour seems to have changed between perl 5.6.1 and 5.8.0. So maybe it was a bug that was fixed.

With perl 5.6.1, I get: 


    $ perl -le 'print scalar unpack "C/a*", pack "C/a*", "Test"'
    4

[download]
With perl 5.8.0, I get: 

    $ perl -le 'print scalar unpack "C/a*", pack "C/a*", "Test"'
    Test

[download]

Update: The pack documentation for both versions state "The length-item is not returned explicitly from unpack.". So it looks like the 5.6.1 version is wrong.

--
John.

In reply to Re: unpack 'C/a*' and context weirdness by jmcnamara
in thread unpack 'C/a*' and context weirdness by BrowserUk

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