Monks,

I am writing some code that takes a number of pieces of data and packages them up into one large chunk. I am using pack to do this, and it works fine in most cases. E.g.,

my $eight_bit_piece = 255;
my $other_eight_bit_piece = 255;
my $sixteen_bit_piece = 8;

my $packaged_data = pack("CCn",
    $eight_bit_piece,
    $other_eight_bit_piece,
    $sixteen_bit_piece);
# Gives me 11111111 11111111 0000000000001000 as desired
[download]

However, I don't know what to do when my individual pieces of data don't divide cleanly into 8-bit chunks. For example, I want to assemble a 16-bit word from two six-bit and one four-bit chunks:

my $piece_one_six_bits = 12;   # 001100
my $piece_two_six_bits = 12;   # 001100
my $piece_three_four_bits = 5; #   0101

# What now?
[download]

I have come up with a solution...

my $packaged_data = pack("n",
                          $piece_one_six_bits << (6 + 4)
                        | $piece_two_six_bits << 4
                        | $piece_three_four_bits
                        );
[download]

... but it doesn't feel right. I am trying to avoid bitwise operations. Isn't this work pack should be able to do? Can anybody point me in the right direction with this?

Thanks in advance for your help.