use Devel::Peek qw( Dump ); use Encode qw( encode ); my $chars_suites = "\x{2660}\x{2661}\x{2662}\x{2663}"; my $utf8_suites = encode('UTF-8', $chars_suites); # Make sure they're the same, UTF8 flag non-withstanding. Dump($chars_suites); Dump($utf8_suites); my %hash; $hash{$chars_suites}++; $hash{$utf8_suites}++; { local $, = ", "; local $\ = "\n"; print values %hash; }