use Encode qw( from_to _utf8_on ); use Devel::Peek; $s = "\x{b5}"; Dump $s; from_to($s, 'latin1', 'utf8'); _utf8_on $s; Dump $s; __END__ SV = PV(0x234fa90) at 0x2375870 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (POK,IsCOW,pPOK) PV = 0x2372400 "\265"\0 CUR = 1 LEN = 10 COW_REFCNT = 2 SV = PV(0x234fa90) at 0x2375870 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (POK,pPOK,UTF8) PV = 0x249b2c0 "\302\265"\0 [UTF8 "\x{b5}"] CUR = 2 LEN = 10