#!/usr/bin/perl

use JSON;
#variable declaration
my $gender = "Female"
#turning english selection to Chinese character
if ($gender eq 'Female') {
    $gender = "女";
} elsif ($gender eq 'Male') {
        $gender = "男";
} elsif ($gender eq 'Decline to state') {
            $gender = "";
    }


my $hash_ref = {};

$hash_ref->{'detail_sex'} = $gender;

print JSON->new->utf8(1)->pretty(1)->encode($hash_ref);<\code>

<p>This is the result I get:

{ "detail_sex" : "女" }

However, when I test another script it comes out perfectly.</p>

<code>#!/usr/bin/perl
use Digest::MD5 qw(md5 md5_hex md5_base64);
use Encode qw(encode_utf8);
use JSON;


my $userid = 1616589;
my $time = 2015811;
my $ejob_id = 1908063;
# md5 encryption without chinese characters
my $md5_hex_sign = md5_hex($userid,$time,$job_id);
print "$md5_hex_sign\n";
# seeing if character will print
print "let's try encoding and decrypting \n"; 
print "the character to encrypt.\n";
print "&#22899;\n";
print "unicode print out\n";
print "\x{5973}\n";
my $char = "\x{5973}";
my $sign_char = "&#22899;";
print "unicode stored in \$char variable \n";
print $char, "\n";
print "md5 encryption of said chinese character from \$char with utf8 encoding\n";
print md5_hex(encode_utf8($char)), "\n";
print "md5 encryption of wide character with utf8 encoding\n";
print md5_hex(encode_utf8("&#22899;")), "\n";
my $sign_gender = md5_hex(encode_utf8($sign_char));
#JSON

print "JSON print out\n";

my $hash_ref = {};

$hash_ref->{'gender'} = $char;
$hash_ref->{'md5_gender'} = md5_hex(encode_utf8($char));
$hash_ref->{'char_gender'} = md5_hex(encode_utf8("&#22899;"));
$hash_ref->{'sign_gender'} = $sign_gender;
print JSON->new->utf8(1)->pretty(1)->encode($hash_ref);