AFAIK, MySQL returns correct UTF-8 data but doesn't set UTF-8 flag. What are other options to fix this?

Don't pass a string of char where a string of bytes is expected. 

my $octets_for_mysql = decode('UTF-8', $chars);  # Option 1
my $octets_for_mysql = encode('utf8', $chars);   # Option 2

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As for retrieving the data, 

my $chars = decode('UTF-8', $octets_from_mysql);  # Option 1
my $chars = decode('utf8', $octets_from_mysql);   # Option 2

[download]

The difference between options 1 and 2 is explained in "UTF-8 vs. utf8" in Encode's docs.

In reply to Re^5: UTF-8 problem, some chars appear as \x.. by ikegami
in thread UTF-8 problem, some chars appear as \x.. by zanzibar

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