Hello, ok here's as short and succinct a sample as I can create.

use Text::CSV;
use CGI;

my($row) = "search/¿Cuales son las partes de una cadena de conexión??s
+cope|ids_jdbc_011.htm|0|1|1|0";

my $csv = Text::CSV->new ({ binary => 1, sep_char => "|" });
my $q = new CGI;

# print the HTML header and start html
print $q->header;
print $q->start_html;

 # first, print $row as is
 print $q->p("ROW: $row");

 # next, parse with $csv
 $csv->parse($row);
 my @els = $csv->fields;

 # print the first field
 # this displays the black diamond ? symbol for ¿ and ó
 print $q->p("CSV Parse, field 0:",$els[0]);
 
 # split instead
 my(@splits) = split('\|',$row);
 
 # print the first element in @splits.
 # As noted, this one displays properly in the browser.
 print $q->p("split 0:", $splits[0]);
 
print $q->end_html;
 
exit;
[download]

thanks

======================

UMM, update, when I actually ran the above in my http server I got the opposite results, but with weird errors.

ROW: search/¿Cuales son las partes de una cadena de conexión??scope|
+ids_jdbc_011.htm|0|1|1|0

CSV Parse, field 0: search/¿Cuales son las partes de una cadena de con
+exión??scope

split 0: search/¿Cuales son las partes de una cadena de conexión??sc
+ope
[download]

Paint me confused.

In the real script, $row is coming from a @sorted_array from an SQL query. This is getting confusing so maybe I should withdraw my question.

I don't see any mention of any encoding in this code, which is not good. And earlier you said: "I'm using the CGI module and have it properly set: print $q->header(-charset => 'utf-8');" so I doubt this code is representative.

You need to:

• Use a Perl version >= 5.12 and say use feature 'unicode_strings'; or use 5.012; (or higher).
• If you have any non-ASCII characters in your Perl script, save it as UTF-8 and add the use utf8; directive at the top.
• Make sure your data is coming from the database properly encoded. As I linked to above, you can check this via Devel::Peek. If you need that output to go to the browser, see this.
• Make sure you are doing binmode STDOUT, ':encoding(UTF-8)'; or use open qw/:std :utf8/;.
• Make sure you are telling your browser what encoding you are sending it.

Text::CSV is not the problem:

use warnings;
use strict;
use Devel::Peek;
use Text::CSV;

my $str = "\N{U+20AC}|\N{U+20AC}";
Dump($str);  # ... UTF8 "\x{20ac}|\x{20ac}" ...

my ($s1,$s2) = split /\|/, $str;
Dump($s1);   # ... UTF8 "\x{20ac}" ...
Dump($s2);   # ... UTF8 "\x{20ac}" ...

my $csv = Text::CSV->new ({ binary => 1, sep_char => "|" });
$csv->parse($str);
my ($c1,$c2) = $csv->fields;
Dump($c1);   # ... UTF8 "\x{20ac}" ...
Dump($c2);   # ... UTF8 "\x{20ac}" ...
[download]

Hello haukex, thanks a million for your advice, but I have to confess this is way beyond my understanding or abilities in many ways, so I think I'm going to have to live with it. FWIW every time encoding problems come up I get lost in the weeds. (I'm not a developer, just a Perl hack, don't grok hexdump or Devel::Peek etc.)

All I know in this case is I can print my @sorted_array rows to a flat file (opened with Notepad++) or to a web page using CGI, and those characters look fine. It's only when I use Text:CSV that something goes haywire.

Anyway I appreciate your patience and help, sorry for the trouble.

In what encoding have you saved the source code? The recommended practice is to use UTF-8 and tell Perl that your source code contains non-ascii UTF-8 characters (i.e. use utf8).
map{substr$_->[0],$_->[1]||0,1}[\*||{},3],[[]],[ref qr-1,-,-1],[{}],[sub{}^*ARGV,3]

Hi Choroba, my editor Notepad++ is set to UTF-8.