https://yegorov.github.io/tags/ascii/ Recent content in ASCII on Artem Yegorov Hugo en Thu, 05 Nov 2026 08:59:52 +0000 https://yegorov.github.io/notes/packing-unpacking-data-in-ruby/ Thu, 05 Nov 2026 08:59:52 +0000 https://yegorov.github.io/notes/packing-unpacking-data-in-ruby/ <p>One of the coolest and most thoughtfully implemented features in Ruby is data packing and unpacking. I haven&rsquo;t encountered such a simple API for working with binary data even in compiled languages like Go, Rust, or C++.</p> <p>For example, if you need to turn two bytes into a 16-bit integer, it looks like this:</p> <div class="highlight"><pre tabindex="0" class="chroma"><code class="language-ruby" data-lang="ruby"><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">[</span><span class="mi">32</span><span class="p">,</span> <span class="mi">255</span><span class="o">].</span><span class="n">pack</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;C*&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">unpack</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s1">&#39;S&gt;&#39;</span><span class="p">)</span> </span></span><span class="line"><span class="cl"><span class="o">=&gt;</span> <span class="o">[</span><span class="mi">8447</span><span class="o">]</span> </span></span></code></pre></div><p>To make it clearer what&rsquo;s happening, let&rsquo;s add 1 byte to the result and unpack it back into an array of bytes:</p>