It may not be the most efficient Perl but I was able to get the results I wanted using the following (not without some trial and error!) - $raw = '000000000000174f0100000000004a000000000000004a'; $x = hex(unpack("H*",(substr($raw,9,6)))) ; $y = hex(unpack("H*",(substr($raw,15,8)))) ; The output was the integer value of 74 in both cases which is what I was shooting for...