From: James Edward Gray II <james@...>
Date: 2007-02-15T08:37:45+09:00
Subject: Re: Converting Bytes to  a Negative Integer

On Feb 14, 2007, at 5:02 PM, Morton Goldberg wrote:

> data = ""
> [255, 255, 255, 236].each { |e| data << e }
> data # => "\377\377\377\354"
> data.unpack('l').first # => -20

Watch what happens when I run the same code:

 >> data = ""
=> ""
 >> [255, 255, 255, 236].each { |e| data << e }
=> [255, 255, 255, 236]
 >> data
=> "\377\377\377\354"
 >> data.unpack('l').first
=> -318767105

See my earlier post in this thread about this.

James Edward Gray II