sub validUTF8{
  ($_)=@_;   
  use utf8;
  my @a=split "",$_;  
  foreach (@a) { 
#    if (/[\0-\x{ff}]/  or /[\x{C0}-\x{C3}][\x{80}-\x{FF}]/){             
    if (/[\0-\x{ff}]/  or /[\x{C2}-\x{C3}][\x{80}-\x{FF}]/){     
    }
    else {
      print STDERR "BAD:$_\n";
      no utf8;
      return 0;
    }
  }
  no utf8;
  return 1;
}

#converts from utf8 to latin1

##</code><code>##

sub utf8tolatin1 {
  ($_)=@_; 
  use utf8;
  tr/\0-\x{ff}//UC; #change utf8 to  Latin-1
  no utf8;
  return $_;
}

#converts from latin1 to utf8
sub latin1toutf8 {
  ($_)=@_;
  use utf8;
  tr/\0-\0xff//CU; #change  Latin-1 to utf8
  no utf8;
  return $_;
}