Here's a working example under linux: 
# test.pl
use strict;
use warnings;
binmode $_, ':encoding(UTF-8)' for *STDIN, *STDOUT, *STDERR;
my $line = <>;
print $line;
chomp $line;
print length($line), "\n";
__END__

# echo -e "\xe4\xbb\x96"|perl test.pl

[download]

Output:

他
1

The hard thing is that you have to manually keep track of which strings are decoded, and which not. Which is a huge cognitive load, unless you settle for decoding everything through an input IO layer, and encoding everything through an output IO layer.

Most database drivers have an option to do that for you too.

See also: Encodings and Unicode.

Perl 6 - second systems done right

In reply to Re: Triple Byte UTF8 Characters by moritz
in thread Triple Byte UTF8 Characters by rwadkins

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.