#!/usr/local/bin/perl -l
use strict;
use warnings;
use Encode;

my $bytes = 'ñ';    # UTF-8 encoded source (c3 b1 = ñ)
                     # displays as two latin1 chars here (c3 = Ã, b1 = ±), 
                     # because PM doesn't handle UTF-8

my $chars = decode('UTF-8', $bytes);

print '$bytes eq \x{f1} ? ', $bytes eq "\x{f1}" ? "match":"no match"; 
print '$chars eq \x{f1} ? ', $chars eq "\x{f1}" ? "match":"no match"; 

print '$bytes: ', $bytes;
print '$chars: ', $chars;

binmode STDOUT, "utf8";

print '$bytes (STDOUT is UTF-8): ', $bytes;
print '$chars (STDOUT is UTF-8): ', $chars;

##</code><code>##

$bytes eq \x{f1} ? no match
$chars eq \x{f1} ? match

##</code><code>##

$bytes: ñ
$chars: 
$bytes (STDOUT is UTF-8): ñ
$chars (STDOUT is UTF-8): ñ