in reply to help needed in storing the return values of unpack

Use array slices: 

my( @a, @b, @c );
( @a[0..19], @b[0..9], @c[0..3] ) = 
    unpack 'C20C10C4', 'abcdefghijklmnopqrst1234567890fred';

print "@a\n@b\n@c";
97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 1
+15 116
49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 48
102 114 101 100

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