use Encode;
use encoding 'utf8';

my $test = "<U+010C>";
$test=~s/\<U\+(.*)\>/\\x\{$1\}/g;
print "$test\n"; # prints \x{010C}

my $probe1=encode("utf8","\x{010C}"); # works
my $probe2=encode("utf8","$test"); # does not work?