According to the Camel book, unpack in a scalar context unpacks a
single value.   In fact, it returns the format string if the format
string starts with an x specifier.

% perl -v

This is perl, version 4.0

$RCSfile: perl.c,v $$Revision: 4.0.1.4 $$Date: 91/06/10 01:23:07 $
Patch level: 10

Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1991, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 4.0 source kit.

% perl -e '$_="012345XY98765"; $m = unpack("x6 a2", $_); print $m;'
x6 a2

% perl -e '$_="012345XY98765"; ($m) = unpack("x6 a2", $_); print $m;'
XY

% perl -e '$_="012345XY98765"; $m = unpack("a2", $_); print $m;'
01

hmmmmmm.....
--
Gregory Bond, Burdett Buckeridge & Young Ltd, Melbourne, Australia

Uucp: {uunet,pyramid,ubc-cs,ukc,mcvax,prlb2,nttlab...}!munnari!melba.bby.oz!gnb

Thank you.  I thought I was either (a) going crazy or (b) unearthed Yet
Another SCO Unix Bug.  (Lord knows I've tickled enough of them so far....)

++Brandon
--
Brandon S. Allbery                    KF8NH: DC to LIGHT!  [44.70.4.88]