...Although, I find this works when I collect user input with the construct: 
my $user_input = <STDIN>;

[download]
but does not work when I collect it with: 
my $stdin = new IO::Handle;
   $stdin->fdopen( fileno( STDIN ), "r" ) || die "Cannot open STDIN";
while ( my $char = $stdin->getc() ) {
}

[download]
and I need to use hippo's suggestion below. In each iteration, $char is a byte. Is there a way to coerce $char to be utf8?

In reply to Re^3: Match full utf-8 characters by Allasso
in thread Match full utf-8 characters by Allasso

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