oh, right, forgot about that

What about the Dumper?

If i try

perl -CSD -le " print qq{use utf8;\nprint qq{I \x{2665} Perl\n};\n}; "
+ >foo.pl
[download]

I get

use utf8;
print qq{I ♥ Perl
};

If I run that through perltidy or your program its unchanged

cmd.exe doesn't know how to display the unicode without a chcp, but the bytes are the same

If I add to your program

    use Data::Dump qw/pp /;
    print STDERR pp("$output_string");
[download]

I get unchanged correct result as expected

"use utf8;\nprint qq{I \xE2\x99\xA5 Perl\n};\n\n"
[download]

by default cmd.exe does not unicode

$ chcp
Active code page: 437

$ type foo.tdy
use utf8;
print qq{I ΓΦΡ Perl
};

If I change it I get a heart

$ chcp 65001
Active code page: 65001

$ type foo.tdy
use utf8;
print qq{I ♥ Perl
};

---

---

Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!

Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.

Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.

Please read these before you post! —

• How do I compose an effective node title?
• How do I post a question effectively?
• Markup in the Monastery

Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:

a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr

You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)

	For:		Use:
	&		&
	<		&lt;
	>		&gt;
	[		&#91;
	]		&#93;

Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?

See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.