Let me give it a shot ;)

use HTML::Entities;
my $crazyhtml = "<p> asdf ".chr(243)." asdf </p>";
die encode_entities($crazyhtml, "[^><]" );
__END__
<p> asdf ¡Ü asdf </p> at - line 3.
[download]

Hmm, doesn't appear to work. Well, the good news is , HTML::Entities also exports "%char2entity and the %entity2char hashes which contain the mapping from all characters to the corresponding entities", so you can write your own.

update: You know, it wouldn't be a bad idea for the author to bold that sentance in the manual, even if the pod is pretty short.

MJD says you can't just make shit up and expect the computer to know what you mean, retardo! I run a Win32 PPM repository for perl 5.6x+5.8x. I take requests. ** The Third rule of perl club is a statement of fact: pod is sexy.