#!perl -w
use strict;

my $hardcoded_string_in_perl     = "\x{0052}\x{0044}\x{0024}";
my $string_as_read_from_database = '\x{0052}\x{0044}\x{0024}';

 
print $hardcoded_string_in_perl;     # RDS
print $string_as_read_from_database; # \x{0052}\x{0044}\x{0024}

print_to_pdf( $hardcoded_string_in_perl ); # works and shows the correct characters in the PDF
print_to_pdf( $string_as_read_from_database ); # works and shows the correct characters in the PDF

##</code><code>##

sub unescape {
    my( $str ) = @_;
    $str =~ s!\\x\{([0-9a-f]{4})\}!chr(hex $1)!ge;
    $str
};

print unescape('\x{0052}\x{0044}\x{0024}');