From: baumanj@...
Date: 2006-03-30T00:53:44+09:00
Subject: unpack signed short in network (big-endian) byte order

Is there any particular reason why there is no format specifier in the
String.unpack method for unpacking a signed short in network byte
order? There seems only to be one for unsigned, which can then be
converted to signed with a proc like this:

length = 16
max = 2**length-1
mid = 2**(length-1)
to_signed = proc {|n| (n >= mid) ? -((n ^ max) + 1) : n}

It seems reasonable to add a format specifier to do this directly.
Thoughts?