I thought there was some kind of scalar util library version, too.

The Encode you referenced also explains how encoded/decoded strings are so-marked, so it would be good for the OP to go over. And it mentions "As of perl 5.8.1, utf8 also has utf8::is_utf8().

In reply to Re^5: use bytes vs packed data by John M. Dlugosz
in thread use bytes vs packed data by RDOlson

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