But, I'm running into a problem whenever the most significant bit is set....

How are you determining what pack is producing?

Cos I'm seeing no signs of what you describe:

$s = pack 'B8', '10000000';;
print length $s;;
1
print ord( $s );;
128

$s = pack 'B8', '11000000';;
print length $s;;
1
print ord( $s );;
192

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The start of some sanity?

In reply to Re: Help with pack error by BrowserUk
in thread Help with pack error by taack

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