Hi rumpeumpel1,

Character encoding is complicated. You might like to look at a very simple overview I posted previously.

As other monks have pointed out, Data::Dumper will not do what you want. If you replace it with Data::Dumper::AutoEncode and use eDumper instead of Dumper, your encoding will be retained.

use strict; use warnings; use feature 'say';
use Data::Dumper::AutoEncode;

use utf8;
my $str = 'Nach Rücksprache mit';

say Dumper $str;
say eDumper $str;

__END__
[download]

Output:

$ perl 1182603.pl 
$VAR1 = "Nach R\x{fc}cksprache mit";

$VAR1 = 'Nach Rücksprache mit';
[download]

(But as others have said, Data::Dumper is not usually the best choice for data serialization or generating final program output.)

Hope this helps!