GDBM_File does not appear to be friendly to utf8. How does one conjure GDBM_File to accept utf8 strings, Example: 
require 5.8.5;
use    strict;
no     strict 'subs';
use     warnings;
use     encoding 'utf8';                                    
use     Carp;
use     English;

use     GDBM_File;

binmode STDIN,  ':utf8';
binmode STDOUT, ':utf8';
binmode STDERR, ':utf8';

my $count = 0;
my %keys;
my $file = "FAST.gdbm";

tie (%keys, GDBM_File, $file, &GDBM_WRCREAT, 0644) || die ("could not 
+open:$file");

while (my $line = <STDIN>)
   {
      chomp $line;

      my ($key, $heading) = split (/\t/, $line);

      eval { $keys{$key} = $heading; };

      if ("" ne $EVAL_ERROR)
         {
            print $line, "\n";
         }

      if (0 == (++$count % 10000)) { print STDERR "$count loaded\n"; }
   }

print  STDERR "$count  loaded\n";

[download]
Example input: 
fst01710268    $aCinéma vérité films 
fst01710335    $aSchulma&#136;dchen-Report films 
fst01710349    $aAngélique films 
fst01710442    $aTrapalho&#131;es films 
fst01726204    $aFanto&#130;mas films 
fst01726458    $aFlu&#136;gelhorn music (Jazz) 
fst01726727    $aRomans a&#128; clef

[download]

In reply to utf8 and GDBM by musterion

Title:
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