use utf8;

##</code><code>##

 #this decode utf8 routine is used so filenames with extended
   # ascii characters (unicode) in filenames, will work properly

   use Encode;
   opendir my $dh, $path or warn "Error: $!";
   my @files = grep !/^\.\.?$/, readdir $dh;
   closedir $dh;
   # @files = map{ "$path/".$_ } sort @files;
   #$_ = decode( 'utf8', $_ ) for ( @files );
   @files = map { decode( 'utf8', "$path/".$_  ) } sort @files;


##</code><code>##

use Encode;
my $file = decode('utf8', $file)