G'day ashes3d,

Welcome to the monastery.

Using the data you've provided, here's a blow-by-blow account of how to achieve what I believe you're after.

#!/usr/bin/env perl

use 5.010;
use strict;
use warnings;

# Simulate the 4 bytes of input binary data (i.e. from input file)
my $in_data = pack 'B32' => '01011111111100000111000011111010';

# Create new leading byte with binary value of 1
my $lead_byte = pack 'B8' => '00000001';

# Concatenate leading and input bitstrings
my $concat_bitstrings = unpack('B8', $lead_byte) . unpack('B32', $in_d
+ata);

# Create new data with 5 (1+4) bytes
my $out_data = pack 'B40' => $concat_bitstrings;

# Test it worked

# Converting    "0101_1111_1111_0000_0111_0000_1111_1010"
# and "0000_0001_0101_1111_1111_0000_0111_0000_1111_1010"
# to HEX format for ease of visualising/checking
my $in_hex = '5ff070fa';
my $out_hex = '01' . $in_hex;

# Print expected and actual results
say 'Input';
say 'EXPECT: ', $in_hex;
say 'GOT:    ', unpack 'H*' => $in_data;

say 'Output';
say 'EXPECT: ', $out_hex;
say 'GOT:    ', unpack 'H*' => $out_data;
[download]

Output:

$ pm_bin_32_40.pl
Input
EXPECT: 5ff070fa
GOT:    5ff070fa
Output
EXPECT: 015ff070fa
GOT:    015ff070fa
[download]

I'll assume you've found the doco for pack and unpack. There's also a tutorial you may not be aware of: perlpacktut.