How do I make Perl code DWIM with UTF8?

Question

The utf8 pragma and utf8 encodings on filehandles have me confused. For example, this apparently straightforward code... ``` use utf8; print qq[fü]; ``` To be clear, the hex dump on "fü" is `66 c3 bc` which if I'm not mistaken is proper UTF8. That prints `66 fc` which is not UTF8 but Unicode or maybe Latin-1. Turn off `use utf8` and I get `66 c3 bc`. This is the opposite of what I'd expect. Now let's add in filehandle pramgas. ``` use utf8; binmode *STDOUT, ':encoding(utf8)'; print qq[fü]; ``` Now I get `66 c3 bc`. But remove `use utf8` and I get `66 c3 83 c2 bc` which doesn't make any sense to me. What's the right thing to do to make my code DWIM with UTF8? PS My locale is set to "en_US.UTF-8" and Perl 5.10.1.

Accepted Answer

`use utf8;` states that your source code is encoded in UTF8. By adding

```
binmode *STDOUT, ':encoding(utf8)';
print qq[fü];
```

you are asking that the script's output be encoded in UTF8 as well.

If you had written

```
print "f\x{00FC}
";
```

you would not have needed `use utf8;`.

How do I make Perl code DWIM with UTF8?

Solution

Problem