Also you last suggestion still doesn't work:

...
if ( param('select') )  {  #If user selected an item from the drop dow
+n menu

   $article = encode( 'utf8', $article );
   ...
[download]

The thing that I find astonishing here is that this snippet is NOT what I was suggesting. Look again at my previous reply and focus carefully on the line that has the comment "## ADD THIS LINE". Can you see the difference between the code I suggested and your failed attempt that I quoted just now? It's an important difference.

My suggestion was to create a new utf8 string by decoding the value returned by "param('select')", so that you could compare this utf8 version of the parameter to the contents of the utf8 filename array. What you did instead was something else entirely, and quite brainless.

The evidence is pointing more heavily to the conclusion that you are a troll, trying some novel techniques to waste everyone else's time and get people angry. Why else would you make up something stupid that obviously won't work, and assert that this is what I suggested you should do? If you are not a troll, then you are simply incompetent beyond belief. Either way, if this is what you do when people try to help you, people will stop trying, and simply won't take you seriously anymore. Personally, I'm already laughing out loud at everything you post.

(update: In fact this last reply of yours is really hilarious. It's like you are the Three Stooges, all by yourself! But then, why do I keep replying? Good question... I guess sometimes it's good for a laugh, and sometimes your approach to trolling falls flat, and actually sparks some useful explanations that might be helpful to others, even though it does no good at all to give the information to you.)

ps1: Your test cgi script required me to turn taint mode(-T) off in order to run

So your conclusion is that your particular perl/web-server installation is unable to run anything with taint-checks turned on, and in order to make things work, you make sure taint-checks are turned off... Thanks for letting us know (and thanks also for the link to your web site) -- that's very helpful information for everyone who reads PerlMonks. (update: I just noticed... that site doesn't seem to be working at the moment. Maybe Nik pulled the plug on it? Or tripped over the power cord, or when the cream pie missed his face it hit the motherboard. I don't suppose someone would have hacked it already..)

ps2: I don't yet understand whats the difference of $article = encode( 'utf8', $article ); opposed to $article = decode( 'utf8', $article );

I always have to think twice about the names myself -- here's how I keep them straight: think of "perl internal utf8" as "normal" and everything else as "coded" (like encrypted to keep it mysterious and secret and obscure); in order to turn a perl-internal utf8 string into one of these mysterious external strings, you have to encode (like encryption), and to make one of those mysterious external strings readable as perl-internal utf8, you have to decode (like decryption) -- and the Encode module is your "secret encoder/decoder" tool, your "Enigma machine". Just remember: "encode" returns something that is external (not flagged as perl-internal utf8); "decode" returns perl-internal utf8 (except when you pass it something that is already perl-internal utf8, which causes it to throw an error).

ps3. I cant run the one-linears: i get Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at -e line 1. Tried to switch single with double quotes but iam still getting errors.

That's because you are using the "standard" MS-DOS Prompt shell (command.exe or cmd.exe). Try using a unix-style shell instead (bash.exe). It's available for windows from numerous sources (cygwin is probably the most popular), and it fully supports unix-style quotes and escapes for command lines. No doubt, this advice will open up whole new worlds of potential errors you can make -- have fun with that, but don't post those problems here, because they wouldn't be perl questions.