perl -e '$s=$ARGV[0];$l=length $s;@a=pack "B$l",$s;print "@a\n"' 0111010001101000011010010111001100100000011010010111001100100000011000010010000001110100011001010111001101110100 perl -e '$s=$ARGV[0];$l=(length $s)*8;@a=unpack "B$l",$s;print "@a\n"' "this is a test"