I'm using Perl/Tk Text widgets to display, edit and update data in a MySQL database. Generally it works OK, with one exception: when I read a string with UTF-8 characters out of the database, it isn't displayed properly in the Text widget. I can paste UTF-8 characters into the text widget, and they do end up in the data base correctly.

So, here's how I try to display stuff from the database: 

package photos_unused;
require Exporter;
use DBI;
use photos_globals;
use Tk;
use Tk::NoteBook;
use Tk::Pane;
use Tk::JPEG;
use Tk::DragDrop;
use Tk::DropSite;
use Encode qw(encode decode);

use strict;
.
.
.
 # get the photo properties from the data base
  eval {
    ($credit, $caption, $extra_text, $out, $original_file_name, $direc
+tory) = 
      $dbh->selectrow_array(
        "SELECT credit, caption, extra_text, outx, original_file_name,
+ directory " .
    "FROM photos " .
    "WHERE photo_num = $photo_num " .
    "LIMIT 1");
  }; #end of eval block;

  if ($@) {

    error_message("Database error: $@\n");

  } else {
      
    $credit     = decode('UTF-8', $credit);
    $caption    = decode('UTF-8', $caption);
    $extra_text = decode('UTF-8', $extra_text);
    $out        = decode('UTF-8', $out);
    $tl = $mw->Toplevel();
    $tl->geometry('500x400');
    $tl->title("Photo " . $photo_num . " Properties");
    
    $tl->Label(-text=>"Original file name: " . $original_file_name . "
+  Directory: " . $directory)->pack();

    $fr1 = $tl->Frame(-pady=>5, -padx=>3);
      $fr1->Label(-text=>"Credit")->pack(-anchor=>'w');
      $txtCredit = $fr1->Text(-height=>5)->pack;
      $txtCredit->insert('end', $credit);
      $fr1->pack;

    $fr2 = $tl->Frame(-pady=>5, -padx=>3);
      $fr2->Label(-text=>"Caption")->pack(-anchor=>'w');
      $txtCaption = $fr2->Text(-height=>5)->pack;
      $txtCaption->insert('end', $caption);
      $fr2->pack;

    $fr3 = $tl->Frame(-pady=>5, -padx=>3);
      $fr3->Label(-text=>"Extra text")->pack(-anchor=>'w');
      $txtExtraText = $fr3->Text(-height=>5)->pack;
      $txtExtraText->insert('end', $extra_text);
      $fr3->pack;

    $fr4 = $tl->Frame(-pady=>5, -padx=>3);
      $btnCancel = $fr4->Button(-text => "Cancel", -command=> sub{$tl-
+>destroy})->pack(-side=>'left', -anchor=>'e');
      $btnOK = $fr4->Button(-text => "UPDATE", -command=> [\&update_ph
+oto_properties, $tl, $photo_num])->pack(-side=>'right', -anchor=>'w')
+;
      $fr4->pack(-fill=>'x'); 
  }

[download]

I'm using Perl 5.8.8 and Perl/Tk 804.028 on Ubuntu.

Apologies for the large chunk of code, but I wanted to make sure that there was enough to show how I was going about this.

Thanks!
--- Marais

In reply to Perl/Tk: utf8 in Text widget? by Marais

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