#!/usr/bin/perl

my (@strings) = qw(asdf as asdf foo);

print hex_string(encode(@strings)) . "\n";
print join(", ", decode(encode(@strings))) . "\n";
print join(", ", decode(dehex_string(hex_string(encode(@strings))))) . "\n";

sub decode {
    my ($data) = @_;
    my ($count, $rest) = unpack("Na*",$data);
    my $unpack = "N/a" x $count;
    my (@data) = unpack($unpack,$rest);
    return (@data);
}

sub encode {
    my (@args) = @_;
    my $data = pack("N",scalar(@strings));
    foreach my $string (@strings) {
        $data .= pack("N/a*",$string);
    }
    return ($data);
}

sub hex_string {
    my (@data) = unpack("C*",$_[0]);
    my $data;
    for (@data) {
        $data .= sprintf('%2.2X',$_);
    }
    return ($data);
}

sub dehex_string {
    my ($data) = @_;
    $data =~ s/([a-fA-F0-9][a-fA-F0-9])/pack("C",hex($1))/eg;
    return ($data);
}