#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use Encode qw(encode decode);

my $enc = 'utf-8'; # This script is stored as UTF-8
my $str = "úlcera\n";

# Byte strings:
print ucfirst $str; # prints 'úlcera', ucfirst didn't have any effect.

# text strings::
my $text_str = decode($enc, $str);
$text_str = ucfirst $text_str;
print encode($enc, $text_str); # prints '?lcera', ucfirst as specified.