Thats a good tip too, I compared the three alternate forms and here are the results: 
              Rate   decode     pack _utf8_on
decode     57971/s       --     -93%     -95%
pack      781250/s    1248%       --     -30%
_utf8_on 1111111/s    1817%      42%       --

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Boris

In reply to Re^2: Recommended way to set the utf8 flag without altering the data by borisz
in thread Recommended way to set the utf8 flag without altering the data by borisz

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