$dbh->do( "set names utf8" );

##</code><code>##

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use Encode;
use DBI;
use utf8;  # added by update, lest there be any doubt about this

my $DSN = "DBI:mysql:database=test;host=localhost";
my $db = DBI->connect( $DSN, "", "", { AutoCommit => 1, RaiseError => 0 } )
    or die $DBI::errstr;

my @setup = (
    'SET NAMES utf8',
    'DROP TABLE IF EXISTS widechar_test',
    'CREATE TABLE widechar_test (string varchar(50)) DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8',
    );
for my $s ( @setup ) {
    $db->do( $s ) or die $db->errstr;
}

my $sth = $db->prepare( "INSERT INTO widechar_test (string) VALUES (?)" )
    or die $db->errstr;

my $latin = "\x{e7}\x{e1}";
my $greek = "\x{3a0}\x{397}\x{3a1}\x{39b}";

printf( " char lengths: %d latin, %d greek\n",
	length( $latin ), length( $greek ));

$sth->execute( prep( $latin )) or warn "latin char insert failed: ".$sth->errstr;
$sth->execute( prep( $greek )) or warn "greek char insert failed: ".$sth->errstr;
{
    use bytes;
    printf( " byte lengths: %d latin, %d greek\n",
	    length( $latin ), length( $greek ));
    $sth->execute( prep( $latin )) or warn "latin byte insert failed: ".$sth->errstr;
    $sth->execute( prep( $greek )) or warn "greek byte insert failed: ".$sth->errstr;
}
$sth->finish;

binmode STDOUT, ":utf8";
my $rows = $db->selectall_arrayref( "select * from widechar_test" );
for my $row ( @$rows ) {
    print deprep( $$row[0] );
}

sub prep {
    return encode( "utf8", $_[0] );
#    return $_[0];
}

sub deprep {
    return decode( "utf8", $_[0] ) . "\n";
#    return "$_\n";
}