I'm going to eschew the unpack or pack functions in my reply. Here is one way to accomplish what you are after. There are more elegant ways I'm sure.

#!/usr/bin/perl
#################################################################
$|=1;
use strict;

my $permstring="rw-rw----";
my $num=0;

for (my $i=0;$i<9;$i+=3) {
  
  $num = ($num * 8) + getoctal(substr($permstring,$i,3));

}

printf "%o\n",$num;

exit(0);

sub getoctal {
  my $str=shift;
  my $rval=0;

  $rval+=4 if substr($str,0,1) ne '-';
  $rval+=2 if substr($str,1,1) ne '-';
  $rval+=1 if substr($str,2,1) ne '-';

  return $rval;
}

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Peter L. Berghold --- Peter@Berghold.Net
"Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
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