$ perl -e'binmode STDOUT, ":encoding(UTF-8)"; print chr 0xC9' | LANG=en_CA.utf8 perl a.pl 0 unix:perlio:utf8 Input = "\x{c9}" [utf8] Outside char class: match Inside char class: match $ perl -e'binmode STDOUT, ":encoding(UTF-8)"; print chr 0xC9' | LANG=en_CA.utf8 perl a.pl 1 unix:perlio:utf8 Input = "\x{c9}" [utf8] Outside char class: no match Inside char class: match