B.11. Bits and Pieces
You can work with an array of bits (a
bitstring) with the
vec operator, setting bit number 123,
clearing bit number 456, and checking to see the state of bit 789.
Bitstrings may be of arbitrary size. The vec
operator can also work with chunks of other sizes, as long as the
size is a small power of two, so it's useful if you need to
view a string as a compact array of nybbles, say. See the
perlfunc
manpage.