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

my($a,$decoded,$encoded);
#input bytes to $a
$a=`perl -CS -e "use utf8;print 'é'"`;

#decode it to character
$decoded=decode('UTF-8', $a);
$encoded=encode('UTF-8', $decoded);

#this is good
my $t=Template->new();
$t->process("test.tmpl",{a=>$encoded},"test_out2.html");