This is what I'd like to be able to do but when I entered your code into a file with the PERL load module I didn't get anything like your output - I did get a huge floating point number! ..any suggestions - I am new at PERL as if you didn't already guess... Here's my file: #!/fs/COTS/gnu/bin/AIX/perl $raw = pack 'H*", '00000034000031b110191403b8811bb1366e4'; print for reverse unpack 'dCCVV', reverse $raw ; ..when I run this (simply type "test.pl") I get : 1331232565922520241.709119561536