I agree. I think when the OP refers to "clean up" he may need decode_entities. It is worth noting that decode_entities returns utf8. It can bite you if you aren't expecting it.

My rule of thumb is either not decode (leave the HTML as it is) or (if your not otherwise working with utf8) do a manual conversion similar to what imp discusses above. 

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use warnings;

use HTML::Entities;

print encode_entities(chr(0x92)), "\n";
print encode_entities(chr(0x2019)), "\n";
print sprintf '%02X', ord decode_entities('’');

__DATA__

’
’
2019

[download]

update: Misread the question.

In reply to Re^2: zapping gremlins by wfsp
in thread zapping gremlins by jck

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • 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! —
  • 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:
    & &amp;
    < &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.