Printing shouldn't cause any conversion 

$ perl -MDevel::Peek -MEncode -we'$x=encode("UTF-8", chr(259)); Dump($
+x); print $x' | od -b
SV = PV(0x819f9e0) at 0x814cc6c
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (POK,pPOK)
  PV = 0x81698e0 "\304\203"\0   ---.
  CUR = 2                           \__ same
  LEN = 3                           /
0000000 304 203      --------------'
0000002

$ perl -MDevel::Peek -MEncode -we'$x=encode("UTF-8", chr(238)); Dump($
+x); print $x' | od -b
SV = PV(0x819f9e0) at 0x814cc6c
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (POK,pPOK)
  PV = 0x81698e0 "\303\256"\0   ---.
  CUR = 2                           \__ same
  LEN = 3                           /
0000000 303 256      --------------'
0000002

[download]

How do you know it's outputting xEE?

Are you using :encoding() on the STDOUT? You shouldn't with this data.

Are you using CGI's HTML generation methods (print h1(text))? They do some encoding too.

In reply to Re^5: Strange behaviour ODBC/Unicode in perl by ikegami
in thread Strange behaviour ODBC/Unicode in perl by jpvdv

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.