Anything larger than 0x1F_FFFF will take more than four bytes.

Anything larger than 0xF_FFFF_FFFF will take 13.

$ perl -MDevel::Peek -e'Dump(chr(0x7FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF))'
SV = PV(0x5555770a3f00) at 0x5555770d2d50
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (PADTMP,POK,READONLY,PROTECT,pPOK,UTF8)
  PV = 0x5555770db6f0 "\xFF\x80\x87\xBF\xBF\xBF\xBF\xBF\xBF\xBF\xBF\xB
+F\xBF"\0 [UTF8 "\x{7fffffffffffffff}"]
  CUR = 13
  LEN = 15
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as I said I think byte := character is confusing, it's rather character := byte in the classic case.

Still no idea what you mean. Are you talking about something I said? In which case, you could point out which thing I said you find confusing?

oh, and the classic case is char ≡ byte ≡ smallest addressable unit. It has been all kinds of sizes, including 6, 8, 9, 16 and even 32 bits. (I personally worked on a system with a 16 bit byte extensively.) But we now have strings with elements that have a size larger than the smallest addressable unit. So the classic case is irrelevant.

> Are you talking about something I said?

Rather about something you asked. see Re^15: Seeking Perl docs about how UTF8 flag propagates (Terminology)

> Anything larger than 0xF_FFFF_FFFF will take 13.

Thanks, interesting.

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

You said "And I cringe about calling a byte a character.". What does that even mean? Did someone say a byte is a character? Are you talking about something I said? In which case, what?

Your explanations, including the one to which you just linked, do not provide clarity.