Re^3: Mysteries of unpack("a", ...)

I use STDIN for command line filters of "catable files" (text), eg. cat or "type" in the Windows world can display those files. I stand corrected about use of a binary file for such a purpose.

I am curious as to what "*_" means? I couldn't find that in my reference books.

The kind of binary files I usually deal with might have an odd number of bytes and I have to fix it up in the final result with either 16 bit aligned or 32 bit aligned values. Sometimes that means shifting things over a byte or more, So something like:
my $n_bytes = read(INBIN, $buff, $BUFSIZE); is the ticket. Your mileage may vary as they say! I haven't written any really hairy binary stuff in Perl.

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Re^4: Mysteries of unpack("a", ...) by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 03, 2009 at 18:17 UTC
`_` is the symbol table entry (glob) containing `$_` (and `@_`, `%_`, etc). Using `local` on globs is safer than using `local` on scalars. I don't know why you are trying to prove that `read` can do something `<>` can't. I didn't say you shouldn't use `read`. I didn't say it was useless. I didn't say `<>` can do everything `read` can. * — You haven't come up with something yet. Keep in mind that `length($buff)` also returns the number of bytes read.	[reply] [d/l] [select]

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Re^4: Mysteries of unpack("a", ...)
by ikegami (Patriarch) on Jan 03, 2009 at 18:17 UTC

*_ is the symbol table entry (glob) containing $_ (and @_, %_, etc). Using local on globs is safer than using local on scalars.

I don't know why you are trying* to prove that read can do something <> can't. I didn't say you shouldn't use read. I didn't say it was useless. I didn't say <> can do everything read can.

* — You haven't come up with something yet. Keep in mind that length($buff) also returns the number of bytes read.

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