In Perl, you just can't access memory at random, but the structural and representational conversion provided by "pack" and "unpack" is an excellent alternative. The "pack" function converts values to a byte sequence containing representations according to a given specification, the so-called ``template'' argument. "unpack" is the reverse process, deriving some values from the contents of a string of bytes. (Be cautioned, however, that not all that has been packed together can be neatly unpacked - a very common experience as seasoned travellers are likely to confirm.)
Why, you may ask, would you need a chunk of memory containing some values in binary representation? One good reason is input and output accessing some file, a device, or a network connection, whereby this binary representation is either forced on you or will give you some benefit in processing. Another cause is passing data to some system call that is not available as a Perl function: "syscall" requires you to provide parameters stored in the way it happens in a C program. Even text processing (as shown in the next section) may be simplified with judicious usage of these two functions.
To see how (un)packing works, we'll start with a simple template code where the conversion is in low gear: between the contents of a byte sequence and a string of hexadecimal digits. Let's use "unpack", since this is likely to remind you of a dump program, or some desperate last message unfortunate programs are wont to throw at you before they expire into the wild blue yonder. Assuming that the variable $mem holds a sequence of bytes that we'd like to inspect without assuming anything about its meaning, we can write
my( $hex ) = unpack( 'H*', $mem ); print "$hex\n";
whereupon we might see something like this, with each pair of hex digits corresponding to a byte:
41204d414e204120504c414e20412043414e414c2050414e414d41
What was in this chunk of memory? Numbers, characters, or a mixture of both? Assuming that we're on a computer where ASCII (or some similar) encoding is used: hexadecimal values in the range 0x40 - 0x5A indicate an uppercase letter, and 0x20 encodes a space. So we might assume it is a piece of text, which some are able to read like a tabloid; but others will have to get hold of an ASCII table and relive that firstgrader feeling. Not caring too much about which way to read this, we note that "unpack" with the template code "H" converts the contents of a sequence of bytes into the customary hexadecimal notation. Since ``a sequence of'' is a pretty vague indication of quantity, "H" has been defined to convert just a single hexadecimal digit unless it is followed by a repeat count. An asterisk for the repeat count means to use whatever remains.
The inverse operation - packing byte contents from a string of hexadecimal digits - is just as easily written. For instance:
my $s = pack( 'H2' x 10, map { "3$_" } ( 0..9 ) );
print "$s\n";
Since we feed a list of ten 2-digit hexadecimal strings to "pack", the pack template should contain ten pack codes. If this is run on a computer with ASCII character coding, it will print 0123456789.
Date |Description | Income|Expenditure
01/24/2001 Ahmed's Camel Emporium 1147.99
01/28/2001 Flea spray 24.99
01/29/2001 Camel rides to tourists 235.00
How do we do it? You might think first to use "split"; however, since "split" collapses blank fields, you'll never know whether a record was income or expenditure. Oops. Well, you could always use "substr":
while (<>) {
my $date = substr($_, 0, 11);
my $desc = substr($_, 12, 27);
my $income = substr($_, 40, 7);
my $expend = substr($_, 52, 7);
...
}
It's not really a barrel of laughs, is it? In fact, it's worse than it may seem; the eagle-eyed may notice that the first field should only be 10 characters wide, and the error has propagated right through the other numbers - which we've had to count by hand. So it's error-prone as well as horribly unfriendly.
Or maybe we could use regular expressions:
while (<>) {
my($date, $desc, $income, $expend) =
m|(\d\d/\d\d/\d{4}) (.{27}) (.{7})(.*)|;
...
}
Urgh. Well, it's a bit better, but - well, would you want to maintain that?
Hey, isn't Perl supposed to make this sort of thing easy? Well, it does, if you use the right tools. "pack" and "unpack" are designed to help you out when dealing with fixed-width data like the above. Let's have a look at a solution with "unpack":
while (<>) {
my($date, $desc, $income, $expend) = unpack("A10xA27xA7A*", $_);
...
}
That looks a bit nicer; but we've got to take apart that weird template. Where did I pull that out of?
OK, let's have a look at some of our data again; in fact, we'll include the headers, and a handy ruler so we can keep track of where we are.
1 2 3 4 5
1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678
Date |Description | Income|Expenditure
01/28/2001 Flea spray 24.99
01/29/2001 Camel rides to tourists 235.00
From this, we can see that the date column stretches from column 1 to column 10 - ten characters wide. The "pack"-ese for ``character'' is "A", and ten of them are "A10". So if we just wanted to extract the dates, we could say this:
my($date) = unpack("A10", $_);
OK, what's next? Between the date and the description is a blank column; we want to skip over that. The "x" template means ``skip forward'', so we want one of those. Next, we have another batch of characters, from 12 to 38. That's 27 more characters, hence "A27". (Don't make the fencepost error - there are 27 characters between 12 and 38, not 26. Count 'em!)
Now we skip another character and pick up the next 7 characters:
my($date,$description,$income) = unpack("A10xA27xA7", $_);
Now comes the clever bit. Lines in our ledger which are just income and not expenditure might end at column 46. Hence, we don't want to tell our "unpack" pattern that we need to find another 12 characters; we'll just say ``if there's anything left, take it''. As you might guess from regular expressions, that's what the "*" means: ``use everything remaining''.
Hence, putting it all together:
my($date,$description,$income,$expend) = unpack("A10xA27xA7xA*", $_);
Now, that's our data parsed. I suppose what we might want to do now is total up our income and expenditure, and add another line to the end of our ledger - in the same format - saying how much we've brought in and how much we've spent:
while (<>) {
my($date, $desc, $income, $expend) = unpack("A10xA27xA7xA*", $_);
$tot_income += $income;
$tot_expend += $expend;
}
$tot_income = sprintf("%.2f", $tot_income); # Get them into
$tot_expend = sprintf("%.2f", $tot_expend); # "financial" format
$date = POSIX::strftime("%m/%d/%Y", localtime);
# OK, let's go:
print pack("A10xA27xA7xA*", $date, "Totals", $tot_income, $tot_expend);
Oh, hmm. That didn't quite work. Let's see what happened:
01/24/2001 Ahmed's Camel Emporium 1147.99
01/28/2001 Flea spray 24.99
01/29/2001 Camel rides to tourists 1235.00
03/23/2001Totals 1235.001172.98
OK, it's a start, but what happened to the spaces? We put "x", didn't we? Shouldn't it skip forward? Let's look at what ``pack'' in perlfunc says:
x A null byte.
Urgh. No wonder. There's a big difference between ``a null byte'', character zero, and ``a space'', character 32. Perl's put something between the date and the description - but unfortunately, we can't see it!
What we actually need to do is expand the width of the fields. The "A" format pads any non-existent characters with spaces, so we can use the additional spaces to line up our fields, like this:
print pack("A11 A28 A8 A*", $date, "Totals", $tot_income, $tot_expend);
(Note that you can put spaces in the template to make it more readable, but they don't translate to spaces in the output.) Here's what we got this time:
01/24/2001 Ahmed's Camel Emporium 1147.99
01/28/2001 Flea spray 24.99
01/29/2001 Camel rides to tourists 1235.00
03/23/2001 Totals 1235.00 1172.98
That's a bit better, but we still have that last column which needs to be moved further over. There's an easy way to fix this up: unfortunately, we can't get "pack" to right-justify our fields, but we can get "sprintf" to do it:
$tot_income = sprintf("%.2f", $tot_income);
$tot_expend = sprintf("%12.2f", $tot_expend);
$date = POSIX::strftime("%m/%d/%Y", localtime);
print pack("A11 A28 A8 A*", $date, "Totals", $tot_income, $tot_expend);
This time we get the right answer:
01/28/2001 Flea spray 24.99
01/29/2001 Camel rides to tourists 1235.00
03/23/2001 Totals 1235.00 1172.98
So that's how we consume and produce fixed-width data. Let's recap what we've seen of "pack" and "unpack" so far:
Warning: when packing multiple pieces of data, "*" only means ``consume all of the current piece of data''. That's to say
pack("A*A*", $one, $two)
packs all of $one into the first "A*" and then all of $two into the second. This is a general principle: each format character corresponds to one piece of data to be "pack"ed.
So, for instance, to pack 20302 to a signed 16 bit integer in your computer's representation you write
my $ps = pack( 's', 20302 );
Again, the result is a string, now containing 2 bytes. If you print this string (which is, generally, not recommended) you might see "ON" or "NO" (depending on your system's byte ordering) - or something entirely different if your computer doesn't use ASCII character encoding. Unpacking $ps with the same template returns the original integer value:
my( $s ) = unpack( 's', $ps );
This is true for all numeric template codes. But don't expect miracles: if the packed value exceeds the allotted byte capacity, high order bits are silently discarded, and unpack certainly won't be able to pull them back out of some magic hat. And, when you pack using a signed template code such as "s", an excess value may result in the sign bit getting set, and unpacking this will smartly return a negative value.
16 bits won't get you too far with integers, but there is "l" and "L" for signed and unsigned 32-bit integers. And if this is not enough and your system supports 64 bit integers you can push the limits much closer to infinity with pack codes "q" and "Q". A notable exception is provided by pack codes "i" and "I" for signed and unsigned integers of the ``local custom'' variety: Such an integer will take up as many bytes as a local C compiler returns for "sizeof(int)", but it'll use at least 32 bits.
Each of the integer pack codes "sSlLqQ" results in a fixed number of bytes, no matter where you execute your program. This may be useful for some applications, but it does not provide for a portable way to pass data structures between Perl and C programs (bound to happen when you call XS extensions or the Perl function "syscall"), or when you read or write binary files. What you'll need in this case are template codes that depend on what your local C compiler compiles when you code "short" or "unsigned long", for instance. These codes and their corresponding byte lengths are shown in the table below. Since the C standard leaves much leeway with respect to the relative sizes of these data types, actual values may vary, and that's why the values are given as expressions in C and Perl. (If you'd like to use values from %Config in your program you have to import it with "use Config".)
signed unsigned byte length in C byte length in Perl
s! S! sizeof(short) $Config{shortsize}
i! I! sizeof(int) $Config{intsize}
l! L! sizeof(long) $Config{longsize}
q! Q! sizeof(long long) $Config{longlongsize}
The "i!" and "I!" codes aren't different from "i" and "I"; they are tolerated for completeness' sake.
+---------+ +----+----+ +---------+
TOS: | IP | TOS+4:| FL | FH | FLAGS TOS+14:| SI |
+---------+ +----+----+ +---------+
| CS | | AL | AH | AX | DI |
+---------+ +----+----+ +---------+
| BL | BH | BX | BP |
+----+----+ +---------+
| CL | CH | CX | DS |
+----+----+ +---------+
| DL | DH | DX | ES |
+----+----+ +---------+
First, we note that this time-honored 16-bit CPU uses little-endian order, and that's why the low order byte is stored at the lower address. To unpack such a (unsigned) short we'll have to use code "v". A repeat count unpacks all 12 shorts:
my( $ip, $cs, $flags, $ax, $bx, $cd, $dx, $si, $di, $bp, $ds, $es ) =
unpack( 'v12', $frame );
Alternatively, we could have used "C" to unpack the individually accessible byte registers FL, FH, AL, AH, etc.:
my( $fl, $fh, $al, $ah, $bl, $bh, $cl, $ch, $dl, $dh ) =
unpack( 'C10', substr( $frame, 4, 10 ) );
It would be nice if we could do this in one fell swoop: unpack a short, back up a little, and then unpack 2 bytes. Since Perl is nice, it proffers the template code "X" to back up one byte. Putting this all together, we may now write:
my( $ip, $cs,
$flags,$fl,$fh,
$ax,$al,$ah, $bx,$bl,$bh, $cx,$cl,$ch, $dx,$dl,$dh,
$si, $di, $bp, $ds, $es ) =
unpack( 'v2' . ('vXXCC' x 5) . 'v5', $frame );
(The clumsy construction of the template can be avoided - just read on!)
We've taken some pains to construct the template so that it matches the contents of our frame buffer. Otherwise we'd either get undefined values, or "unpack" could not unpack all. If "pack" runs out of items, it will supply null strings (which are coerced into zeroes whenever the pack code says so).
my $buf = pack( 'N', length( $msg ) ) . $msg;
or even:
my $buf = pack( 'NA*', length( $msg ), $msg );
and pass $buf to your send routine. Some protocols demand that the count should include the length of the count itself: then just add 4 to the data length. (But make sure to read ``Lengths and Widths'' before you really code this!)
my @data = unpack 's*', pack 'S*', unpack 'n*', $buf;
This is ugly. As of Perl 5.9.2, there's a much nicer way to express your desire for a certain byte-order: the ">" and "<" modifiers. ">" is the big-endian modifier, while "<" is the little-endian modifier. Using them, we could rewrite the above code as:
my @data = unpack 's>*', $buf;
As you can see, the ``big end'' of the arrow touches the "s", which is a nice way to remember that ">" is the big-endian modifier. The same obviously works for "<", where the ``little end'' touches the code.
You will probably find these modifiers even more useful if you have to deal with big- or little-endian C structures. Be sure to read ``Packing and Unpacking C Structures'' for more on that.
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
+-----------------+
| 1 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 |
+-----------------+
MSB LSB
It's egg-eating all over again: Some think that as a bit string this should be written ``10001100'' i.e. beginning with the most significant bit, others insist on ``00110001''. Well, Perl isn't biased, so that's why we have two bit string codes:
$byte = pack( 'B8', '10001100' ); # start with MSB $byte = pack( 'b8', '00110001' ); # start with LSB
It is not possible to pack or unpack bit fields - just integral bytes. "pack" always starts at the next byte boundary and ``rounds up'' to the next multiple of 8 by adding zero bits as required. (If you do want bit fields, there is ``vec'' in perlfunc. Or you could implement bit field handling at the character string level, using split, substr, and concatenation on unpacked bit strings.)
To illustrate unpacking for bit strings, we'll decompose a simple status register (a ``-'' stands for a ``reserved'' bit):
+-----------------+-----------------+
| S Z - A - P - C | - - - - O D I T |
+-----------------+-----------------+
MSB LSB MSB LSB
Converting these two bytes to a string can be done with the unpack template 'b16'. To obtain the individual bit values from the bit string we use "split" with the ``empty'' separator pattern which dissects into individual characters. Bit values from the ``reserved'' positions are simply assigned to "undef", a convenient notation for ``I don't care where this goes''.
($carry, undef, $parity, undef, $auxcarry, undef, $zero, $sign,
$trace, $interrupt, $direction, $overflow) =
split( //, unpack( 'b16', $status ) );
We could have used an unpack template 'b12' just as well, since the last 4 bits can be ignored anyway.
my $uubuf = pack( 'u', $bindat );
A repeat count after "u" sets the number of bytes to put into an uuencoded line, which is the maximum of 45 by default, but could be set to some (smaller) integer multiple of three. "unpack" simply ignores the repeat count.
my $buf = pack( 'iii', 100, 20, 3 );
print unpack( '%32i3', $buf ), "\n"; # prints 123
For string values, "%" returns the sum of the byte values saving you the trouble of a sum loop with "substr" and "ord":
print unpack( '%32A*', "\x01\x10" ), "\n"; # prints 17
Although the "%" code is documented as returning a ``checksum'': don't put your trust in such values! Even when applied to a small number of bytes, they won't guarantee a noticeable Hamming distance.
In connection with "b" or "B", "%" simply adds bits, and this can be put to good use to count set bits efficiently:
my $bitcount = unpack( '%32b*', $mask );
And an even parity bit can be determined like this:
my $evenparity = unpack( '%1b*', $mask );
The Unicode character sets associates characters with integers. Encoding these numbers in an equal number of bytes would more than double the requirements for storing texts written in Latin alphabets. The UTF-8 encoding avoids this by storing the most common (from a western point of view) characters in a single byte while encoding the rarer ones in three or more bytes.
Perl uses UTF-8, internally, for most Unicode strings.
So what has this got to do with "pack"? Well, if you want to compose a Unicode string (that is internally encoded as UTF-8), you can do so by using template code "U". As an example, let's produce the Euro currency symbol (code number 0x20AC):
$UTF8{Euro} = pack( 'U', 0x20AC );
# Equivalent to: $UTF8{Euro} = "\x{20ac}";
Inspecting $UTF8{Euro} shows that it contains 3 bytes: ``\xe2\x82\xac''. However, it contains only 1 character, number 0x20AC. The round trip can be completed with "unpack":
$Unicode{Euro} = unpack( 'U', $UTF8{Euro} );
Unpacking using the "U" template code also works on UTF-8 encoded byte strings.
Usually you'll want to pack or unpack UTF-8 strings:
# pack and unpack the Hebrew alphabet my $alefbet = pack( 'U*', 0x05d0..0x05ea ); my @hebrew = unpack( 'U*', $utf );
Please note: in the general case, you're better off using Encode::decode_utf8 to decode a UTF-8 encoded byte string to a Perl Unicode string, and Encode::encode_utf8 to encode a Perl Unicode string to UTF-8 bytes. These functions provide means of handling invalid byte sequences and generally have a friendlier interface.
my $berbuf = pack( 'w*', 1, 128, 128+1, 128*128+127 );
A hex dump of $berbuf, with spaces inserted at the right places, shows 01 8100 8101 81807F. Since the last byte is always less than 128, "unpack" knows where to stop.
unpack( 'v2 (vXXCC)5 v5', $frame )
Let's explore this feature a little more. We'll begin with the equivalent of
join( '', map( substr( $_, 0, 1 ), @str ) )
which returns a string consisting of the first character from each string. Using pack, we can write
pack( '(A)'.@str, @str )
or, because a repeat count "*" means ``repeat as often as required'', simply
pack( '(A)*', @str )
(Note that the template "A*" would only have packed $str[0] in full length.)
To pack dates stored as triplets ( day, month, year ) in an array @dates into a sequence of byte, byte, short integer we can write
$pd = pack( '(CCS)*', map( @$_, @dates ) );
To swap pairs of characters in a string (with even length) one could use several techniques. First, let's use "x" and "X" to skip forward and back:
$s = pack( '(A)*', unpack( '(xAXXAx)*', $s ) );
We can also use "@" to jump to an offset, with 0 being the position where we were when the last "(" was encountered:
$s = pack( '(A)*', unpack( '(@1A @0A @2)*', $s ) );
Finally, there is also an entirely different approach by unpacking big endian shorts and packing them in the reverse byte order:
$s = pack( '(v)*', unpack( '(n)*', $s );
my $msg = pack( 'Z*Z*CA*', $src, $dst, length( $sm ), $sm );
Unpacking this message can be done with the same template:
( $src, $dst, $len, $sm ) = unpack( 'Z*Z*CA*', $msg );
There's a subtle trap lurking in the offing: Adding another field after the Short Message (in variable $sm) is all right when packing, but this cannot be unpacked naively:
# pack a message my $msg = pack( 'Z*Z*CA*C', $src, $dst, length( $sm ), $sm, $prio ); # unpack fails - $prio remains undefined! ( $src, $dst, $len, $sm, $prio ) = unpack( 'Z*Z*CA*C', $msg );
The pack code "A*" gobbles up all remaining bytes, and $prio remains undefined! Before we let disappointment dampen the morale: Perl's got the trump card to make this trick too, just a little further up the sleeve. Watch this:
# pack a message: ASCIIZ, ASCIIZ, length/string, byte my $msg = pack( 'Z* Z* C/A* C', $src, $dst, $sm, $prio ); # unpack ( $src, $dst, $sm, $prio ) = unpack( 'Z* Z* C/A* C', $msg );
Combining two pack codes with a slash ("/") associates them with a single value from the argument list. In "pack", the length of the argument is taken and packed according to the first code while the argument itself is added after being converted with the template code after the slash. This saves us the trouble of inserting the "length" call, but it is in "unpack" where we really score: The value of the length byte marks the end of the string to be taken from the buffer. Since this combination doesn't make sense except when the second pack code isn't "a*", "A*" or "Z*", Perl won't let you.
The pack code preceding "/" may be anything that's fit to represent a number: All the numeric binary pack codes, and even text codes such as "A4" or "Z*":
# pack/unpack a string preceded by its length in ASCII my $buf = pack( 'A4/A*', "Humpty-Dumpty" ); # unpack $buf: '13 Humpty-Dumpty' my $txt = unpack( 'A4/A*', $buf );
"/" is not implemented in Perls before 5.6, so if your code is required to work on older Perls you'll need to "unpack( 'Z* Z* C')" to get the length, then use it to make a new unpack string. For example
# pack a message: ASCIIZ, ASCIIZ, length, string, byte (5.005 compatible) my $msg = pack( 'Z* Z* C A* C', $src, $dst, length $sm, $sm, $prio ); # unpack ( undef, undef, $len) = unpack( 'Z* Z* C', $msg ); ($src, $dst, $sm, $prio) = unpack ( "Z* Z* x A$len C", $msg );
But that second "unpack" is rushing ahead. It isn't using a simple literal string for the template. So maybe we should introduce...
my $env = pack( '(A*A*Z*)' . keys( %Env ) . 'C',
map( { ( $_, '=', $Env{$_} ) } keys( %Env ) ), 0 );
Let's examine the cogs of this byte mill, one by one. There's the "map" call, creating the items we intend to stuff into the $env buffer: to each key (in $_) it adds the "=" separator and the hash entry value. Each triplet is packed with the template code sequence "A*A*Z*" that is repeated according to the number of keys. (Yes, that's what the "keys" function returns in scalar context.) To get the very last null byte, we add a 0 at the end of the "pack" list, to be packed with "C". (Attentive readers may have noticed that we could have omitted the 0.)
For the reverse operation, we'll have to determine the number of items in the buffer before we can let "unpack" rip it apart:
my $n = $env =~ tr/\0// - 1; my %env = map( split( /=/, $_ ), unpack( "(Z*)$n", $env ) );
The "tr" counts the null bytes. The "unpack" call returns a list of name-value pairs each of which is taken apart in the "map" block.
my $env = pack( 'S(S/A* S/A*)*', scalar keys( %Env ), %Env );
This simplifies the reverse operation as the number of repetitions can be unpacked with the "/" code:
my %env = unpack( 'S/(S/A* S/A*)', $env );
Note that this is one of the rare cases where you cannot use the same template for "pack" and "unpack" because "pack" can't determine a repeat count for a "()"-group.
If you have to deal with a lot of C structures, and don't want to hack all your template strings manually, you'll probably want to have a look at the CPAN module "Convert::Binary::C". Not only can it parse your C source directly, but it also has built-in support for all the odds and ends described further on in this section.
To see how this affects "pack" and "unpack", we'll compare these two C structures:
typedef struct {
char c1;
short s;
char c2;
long l;
} gappy_t;
typedef struct {
long l;
short s;
char c1;
char c2;
} dense_t;
Typically, a C compiler allocates 12 bytes to a "gappy_t" variable, but requires only 8 bytes for a "dense_t". After investigating this further, we can draw memory maps, showing where the extra 4 bytes are hidden:
0 +4 +8 +12 +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ |c1|xx| s |c2|xx|xx|xx| l | xx = fill byte +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ gappy_t 0 +4 +8 +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ | l | h |c1|c2| +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ dense_t
And that's where the first quirk strikes: "pack" and "unpack" templates have to be stuffed with "x" codes to get those extra fill bytes.
The natural question: ``Why can't Perl compensate for the gaps?'' warrants an answer. One good reason is that C compilers might provide (non-ANSI) extensions permitting all sorts of fancy control over the way structures are aligned, even at the level of an individual structure field. And, if this were not enough, there is an insidious thing called "union" where the amount of fill bytes cannot be derived from the alignment of the next item alone.
OK, so let's bite the bullet. Here's one way to get the alignment right by inserting template codes "x", which don't take a corresponding item from the list:
my $gappy = pack( 'cxs cxxx l!', $c1, $s, $c2, $l );
Note the "!" after "l": We want to make sure that we pack a long integer as it is compiled by our C compiler. And even now, it will only work for the platforms where the compiler aligns things as above. And somebody somewhere has a platform where it doesn't. [Probably a Cray, where "short"s, "int"s and "long"s are all 8 bytes. :-)]
Counting bytes and watching alignments in lengthy structures is bound to be a drag. Isn't there a way we can create the template with a simple program? Here's a C program that does the trick:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stddef.h>
typedef struct {
char fc1;
short fs;
char fc2;
long fl;
} gappy_t;
#define Pt(struct,field,tchar) \
printf( "@%d%s ", offsetof(struct,field), # tchar );
int main() {
Pt( gappy_t, fc1, c );
Pt( gappy_t, fs, s! );
Pt( gappy_t, fc2, c );
Pt( gappy_t, fl, l! );
printf( "\n" );
}
The output line can be used as a template in a "pack" or "unpack" call:
my $gappy = pack( '@0c @2s! @4c @8l!', $c1, $s, $c2, $l );
Gee, yet another template code - as if we hadn't plenty. But "@" saves our day by enabling us to specify the offset from the beginning of the pack buffer to the next item: This is just the value the "offsetof" macro (defined in "<stddef.h>") returns when given a "struct" type and one of its field names (``member-designator'' in C standardese).
Neither using offsets nor adding "x"'s to bridge the gaps is satisfactory. (Just imagine what happens if the structure changes.) What we really need is a way of saying ``skip as many bytes as required to the next multiple of N''. In fluent Templatese, you say this with "x!N" where N is replaced by the appropriate value. Here's the next version of our struct packaging:
my $gappy = pack( 'c x!2 s c x!4 l!', $c1, $s, $c2, $l );
That's certainly better, but we still have to know how long all the integers are, and portability is far away. Rather than 2, for instance, we want to say ``however long a short is''. But this can be done by enclosing the appropriate pack code in brackets: "[s]". So, here's the very best we can do:
my $gappy = pack( 'c x![s] s c x![l!] l!', $c1, $s, $c2, $l );
my $gappy = pack( 'c x![s] s c x![l] l', $c1, $s, $c2, $l );
If the target machine is little-endian, we could write:
my $gappy = pack( 'c x![s] s< c x![l] l<', $c1, $s, $c2, $l );
This forces the short and the long members to be little-endian, and is just fine if you don't have too many struct members. But we could also use the byte-order modifier on a group and write the following:
my $gappy = pack( '( c x![s] s c x![l] l )<', $c1, $s, $c2, $l );
This is not as short as before, but it makes it more obvious that we intend to have little-endian byte-order for a whole group, not only for individual template codes. It can also be more readable and easier to maintain.
typedef struct {
short count;
char glyph;
} cell_t;
typedef cell_t buffer_t[BUFLEN];
Where's the catch? Padding is neither required before the first field "count", nor between this and the next field "glyph", so why can't we simply pack like this:
# something goes wrong here:
pack( 's!a' x @buffer,
map{ ( $_->{count}, $_->{glyph} ) } @buffer );
This packs "3*@buffer" bytes, but it turns out that the size of "buffer_t" is four times "BUFLEN"! The moral of the story is that the required alignment of a structure or array is propagated to the next higher level where we have to consider padding at the end of each component as well. Thus the correct template is:
pack( 's!ax' x @buffer,
map{ ( $_->{count}, $_->{glyph} ) } @buffer );
typedef struct {
char foo[2];
} foo_t;
vary in size. The alignment constraint of the structure can be greater than any of its elements. [And if you think that this doesn't affect anything common, dismember the next cellphone that you see. Many have ARM cores, and the ARM structure rules make "sizeof (foo_t)" == 4]
Template code "P" promises to pack a ``pointer to a fixed length string''. Isn't this what we want? Let's try:
# allocate some storage and pack a pointer to it
my $memory = "\x00" x $size;
my $memptr = pack( 'P', $memory );
But wait: doesn't "pack" just return a sequence of bytes? How can we pass this string of bytes to some C code expecting a pointer which is, after all, nothing but a number? The answer is simple: We have to obtain the numeric address from the bytes returned by "pack".
my $ptr = unpack( 'L!', $memptr );
Obviously this assumes that it is possible to typecast a pointer to an unsigned long and vice versa, which frequently works but should not be taken as a universal law. - Now that we have this pointer the next question is: How can we put it to good use? We need a call to some C function where a pointer is expected. The read(2) system call comes to mind:
ssize_t read(int fd, void *buf, size_t count);
After reading perlfunc explaining how to use "syscall" we can write this Perl function copying a file to standard output:
require 'syscall.ph';
sub cat($){
my $path = shift();
my $size = -s $path;
my $memory = "\x00" x $size; # allocate some memory
my $ptr = unpack( 'L', pack( 'P', $memory ) );
open( F, $path ) || die( "$path: cannot open ($!)\n" );
my $fd = fileno(F);
my $res = syscall( &SYS_read, fileno(F), $ptr, $size );
print $memory;
close( F );
}
This is neither a specimen of simplicity nor a paragon of portability but it illustrates the point: We are able to sneak behind the scenes and access Perl's otherwise well-guarded memory! (Important note: Perl's "syscall" does not require you to construct pointers in this roundabout way. You simply pass a string variable, and Perl forwards the address.)
How does "unpack" with "P" work? Imagine some pointer in the buffer about to be unpacked: If it isn't the null pointer (which will smartly produce the "undef" value) we have a start address - but then what? Perl has no way of knowing how long this ``fixed length string'' is, so it's up to you to specify the actual size as an explicit length after "P".
my $mem = "abcdefghijklmn"; print unpack( 'P5', pack( 'P', $mem ) ); # prints "abcde"
As a consequence, "pack" ignores any number or "*" after "P".
Now that we have seen "P" at work, we might as well give "p" a whirl. Why do we need a second template code for packing pointers at all? The answer lies behind the simple fact that an "unpack" with "p" promises a null-terminated string starting at the address taken from the buffer, and that implies a length for the data item to be returned:
my $buf = pack( 'p', "abc\x00efhijklmn" ); print unpack( 'p', $buf ); # prints "abc"
Albeit this is apt to be confusing: As a consequence of the length being implied by the string's length, a number after pack code "p" is a repeat count, not a length as after "P".
Using "pack(..., $x)" with "P" or "p" to get the address where $x is actually stored must be used with circumspection. Perl's internal machinery considers the relation between a variable and that address as its very own private matter and doesn't really care that we have obtained a copy. Therefore:
It's safe, however, to P- or p-pack a string literal, because Perl simply allocates an anonymous variable.
# Convert IP address for socket functions
pack( "C4", split /\./, "123.4.5.6" );
# Count the bits in a chunk of memory (e.g. a select vector)
unpack( '%32b*', $mask );
# Determine the endianness of your system
$is_little_endian = unpack( 'c', pack( 's', 1 ) );
$is_big_endian = unpack( 'xc', pack( 's', 1 ) );
# Determine the number of bits in a native integer
$bits = unpack( '%32I!', ~0 );
# Prepare argument for the nanosleep system call
my $timespec = pack( 'L!L!', $secs, $nanosecs );
For a simple memory dump we unpack some bytes into just as many pairs of hex digits, and use "map" to handle the traditional spacing - 16 bytes to a line:
my $i;
print map( ++$i % 16 ? "$_ " : "$_\n",
unpack( 'H2' x length( $mem ), $mem ) ),
length( $mem ) % 16 ? "\n" : '';
# Pulling digits out of nowhere...
print unpack( 'C', pack( 'x' ) ),
unpack( '%B*', pack( 'A' ) ),
unpack( 'H', pack( 'A' ) ),
unpack( 'A', unpack( 'C', pack( 'A' ) ) ), "\n";
# One for the road ;-)
my $advice = pack( 'all u can in a van' );