Why did you change your template? You specified "C*" with the unpack example and "C" with the pack example. "C*" matches as many characters as are in the string. "C" only matches one character.

$str = pack('C*',48,49,50,51,52);
print "$str\n";
@chars = unpack('C*',$str);
print join(', ',@chars),"\n";
[download]

... results in:

012345
48, 49, 50, 51, 52
[download]

---
print map { my ($m)=1<<hex($_)&11?' ':'';
$m.=substr('AHJPacehklnorstu',hex($_),1) }
split //,'2fde0abe76c36c914586c';
[download]