My question is short. I'm trying to use perl to do some bitwise operations. The numbers are large, so I thought it would be nice to use the "string" bitwise AND (that is on page 102 in the 3rd edition of the camel BTW). I have two problems with it though. Here is some example code of the two problems: 
#!/usr/local/bin/perl -w
use strict;

my $key = "24" & "4";
print "Key: $key\n";

my $key2 = "2f" & "4";
print "Key2: $key2\n";

my $key3 = "24" & "04";
print "Key3: $key3\n";

[download]
But that outputs:

Key: 0

Key2: 0

Key3: 04

So really only the last case works. It says right in the camel book that it should assume the string is padded with zeros if one string is longer than the other. Also, why on earth can I not use hex digits in this type of operation?

I guess I'm just really frustrated by perls bitwise funcitonality right now. It sure seems difficult to deal with things as bits to me. Anyone know of a good tutorial on this type of thing?

Justin Eltoft

"If at all god's gaze upon us falls, its with a mischievous grin, look at him" -- Dave Matthews

In reply to bitwise operators by Eradicatore

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