[PHP-NOTES] note 130644 added to function.unpack

[email protected] ("[email protected]") Sat, 07 Feb 2026 18:16:20 +0000
Newsgroups php.notes
Message-ID <[email protected]>
It's with much frustration that I learned, that data packed with "Z" cannot be unpacked again. The unpack() function cannot read back a NUL-terminated string. For example, this simply doesn't work as one expects:

var_dump(unpack('ZZ', "Hello\x00World\x00"));

Produces:

array(1) {
  ["Z"]=>
  string(1) "H"
}

(And no, "Z*" won't help here. I'm not even sure what "Z" is useful for at this point.)
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Server IP: 206.189.2.9
Probable Submitter: 212.51.128.33
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Manual Page -- https://php.net/manual/en/function.unpack.php
Edit        -- https://main.php.net/note/edit/130644
Del: integrated  -- https://main.php.net/note/delete/130644/integrated
Del: useless     -- https://main.php.net/note/delete/130644/useless
Del: bad code    -- https://main.php.net/note/delete/130644/bad+code
Del: spam        -- https://main.php.net/note/delete/130644/spam
Del: non-english -- https://main.php.net/note/delete/130644/non-english
Del: in docs     -- https://main.php.net/note/delete/130644/in+docs
Del: other reasons-- https://main.php.net/note/delete/130644
Reject      -- https://main.php.net/note/reject/130644
Search      -- https://main.php.net/manage/user-notes.php