Hi Monks, I'm reading what apparently is a binary file -I can view it in emacs and along with valid alpha-numeric characters there are also plenty of unprintable/unreadable characters and spaces (the spaces appear as \x20 when the hexl-mode option is turned on in emacs). When I read this file using Perl I don't want to loose those spaces as they are important in determining field lengths. How do suggest I go about doing this - currently I seem to be dropping those spaces? Thanks.... Ok, here goes - My file, when opened in emacs, looks like this: EWH12345^A%^D 704_Barrington_Ctr Warrington_Pa DAH45678^A^%^D 705_Barrington_Ctr Warminster_Pa When I turn on hexl-mode, the "^A%^D" above is "012504", but the spaces are, as you would guess, a hex 20. My question is, the best way to read something like this and not loose those spaces - thanks!

In reply to keeping spaces by Spooky

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