I have resolved the issue. The answer was already supplied in an earlier posting from ikegami. I did not understand how to call the HTML::Form method accept_charset

Below is the modified code that now handles accented input correctly

Really appreciate all the wisdom lurking in this forum 

    use strict;
    use warnings;
    use WWW::Mechanize;
            
#   Create a new browser
    my $browser = WWW::Mechanize->new(autocheck => 1 );
    
#   Tell it to get the main page
    $browser->get("http://193.1.97.44/focloir/"); 
    
#   Okay, fill in the form with the first word to look up
    $browser->form_number(1);         # Select first as active form
#
#   This is the patch to specify input character set        
    $browser->form_number(2)->accept_charset ("iso-8859-15");   
    
    $browser->field("WORD", "acht");  # Next word in dict is achtú

    
#   Get a consecutive sequence of words, one word per web request    
    for (my $i=1; $i<=2; $i++)
    {
        $browser->dump_forms();       # i=1 WORD parameter is acht  
                                      #     Hex: [61 63 68 74]
                                      # i=2 WORD parameter is achtú 
                                      #     Hex: [61 63 68 74 FA]
        $browser->click();            # Make the Web request
        print $browser->content;      # i=1 Word found    
                                      # i=2 Message: could not find - 
                                      #     acht&#195;&#186; 
                                      #     Hex: [61 63 68 74 c3 ba]
                                      #     which is achtú in UTF-8   
        sleep (1);                    # Just in case we get into 
                                      # trouble with the web server
#        
#       Pick the second form. It should have the next head word 
#       already filled in
#       NOTE: application code does not access any parameters on 
#             this form
        $browser->form_number(2);     # Select second form as 
                                      # active form
#
#       This is the patch to specify input character set        
        $browser->form_number(2)->accept_charset ("iso-8859-15");     
+                                 
    }

[download]

In reply to Re^3: www:mechanize mangles unicode by Desmond Walsh
in thread www:mechanize mangles unicode by red0hat

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