$ perl -de 1 ... DB<43> $a="\x{1234}/foo" DB<44> x ord substr $a, 0, 1 0 4660 DB<45> sub bsubstr { use bytes; substr $_[0], $_[1], $_[2] } DB<46> x ord bsubstr $a, 0, 1 0 225 DB<47> x ord bsubstr $a, 1, 1 0 136 DB<48> x ord bsubstr $a, 2, 1 0 180 DB<49> x ord bsubstr $a, 3, 1 0 47