It doesn't give me a single format string that I can use to convert back and forth between "records" and "fields".

  @fields = unpack($format, $record);
  $record = pack($format2, @fields);

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(I actually use hash slices rather than arrays, but that's not germane here.) I don't mind having distinct formats. For all-alpha fields, I sometimes do

  ($format3 = $format) =~ s/A/a/g;

so I can generate a non-trimming unpack format from the default, a convenience, but not absolutely essential, since setting up the formats is a one-time thing, but conversion is a per-record thing.

In reply to Re^4: Using pack to evaluate text strings as hexadecimal values by jpl
in thread Using pack to evaluate text strings as hexadecimal values by davis

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