I was wondering if there is a way to do the 0/1 counts directly on the packed version

Yes, unpack can do that: 

$ perl -le'

my $string = q/01010110111000/;

print $string =~ tr/1//;

my $packed_string = pack q/b*/, $string;

print unpack q/%32b*/, $packed_string;
'
7
7

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In reply to Re: Bitwise operators on binary objects by jwkrahn
in thread Bitwise operators on binary objects by albert

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