> Nitpick: Single bytes also work in the 128-255 range, so it is rather ISO-8859-1 than ASCII. For example, an (ä) encoded as chr 0xE4 matches qr/\w/, according to its unicode property.

I can't reproduce this, from what I see is \w defaulting to pure ASCII

C:\Users\rolflangsdorf>perl
$a=chr(0xE4); print "$a matched \\w" if $a =~/^\w/;
__END__

C:\Users\rolflangsdorf>perl -v

This is perl 5, version 32, subversion 1 (v5.32.1) built for MSWin32-x
+64-multi-thread
[download]

As has been said in this thread (and elsewhere): To reproduce, use 5.012; or newer, or more explicitly: use feature 'unicode_strings';

I have the habit to always specify a minimum version I run in my programs, including demos for PerlMonks. I admit that it didn't occur to me that without a version declaration (or with a declaration of 5.010 or older) Perl behaves differently.

well you were the one who started "nitpicking"! :)

edit

I'm wondering why it got such a confusing name

from the docs

• The 'unicode_strings' feature

  use feature 'unicode_strings' tells the compiler to use Unicode rules in all string operations executed within its scope

calling it "unicode_rules" would make more sense to me.

Cheers Rolf
_{(addicted to the 𐍀𐌴𐍂𐌻 Programming Language :)
Wikisyntax for the Monastery}

edit

doesn't it depend on the locale settings?