Permanent utf8

pcouderc has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi, My (linux) computer is utf8. so I use to add in my scripts :

use utf8;
binmode(STDOUT, ":utf8");
binmode(STDERR, ":utf8");
[download]

In fact, I do not want to add that. I did use ASCII, LATIN1, LATIN9 years ago, but no more.

Is it possible to parametrize perl use utf8 everywhere by default ?
And get rid of these declarations.

Comment on Permanent utf8 Download Code

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Re: Permanent utf8 by PerlSufi (Friar) on Jul 10, 2014 at 15:15 UTC
This thread: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6162484/why-does-modern-perl-avoid-utf-8-by-default seems to have insight as to why. Particlarly tchrist's post if you scroll down.. His first recommendation is to set your PERL_UNICODE env variable to `AS`	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Permanent utf8 by Anonymous Monk on Jul 10, 2014 at 15:44 UTC
And yet, even if we do everything that tchrist recommended, something as simple as "... or die $!;" will easily produce mojibake if STDERR is utf-8.	[reply]
Re: Permanent utf8 by AppleFritter (Vicar) on Jul 10, 2014 at 16:11 UTC
I wondered about the same thing a while ago, and was given the following "magic incantation" for defaulting to UTF-8 for both opening files and the `STD*` filehandles: `use open IO => ':utf8', ':std';` [download] That said, there are reasons why Unicode isn't the default; see e.g. why no default unicode?. tchrist's insights on Unicode (already mentioned above) are also worth reading.	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Permanent utf8 by Anonymous Monk on Jul 10, 2014 at 16:20 UTC
there are reasons why Unicode isn't the default Let's be frank here. The reason why UTF-8 isn't the default is that Latin-1 is the default.	[reply]
Re: Permanent utf8 by farang (Chaplain) on Jul 10, 2014 at 19:47 UTC
utf8::all Not a total cure-all, but easy and effective for a great number of situations.	[reply]
Re: Permanent utf8 by Anonymous Monk on Jul 10, 2014 at 15:32 UTC
Is it possible to parametrize perl use utf8 everywhere by default ? Basically, no. And you should be aware that there is a lot of places where Perl expects or produces binary strings.	[reply]
Re: Permanent utf8 by pcouderc (Monk) on Jul 23, 2014 at 09:48 UTC
Thank you all. I see that there is no satisfactory answer. PERL has not invented UTF8 We still remain after Babel...	[reply]