Is this what you want: 
my $a = "\\xC4\\x80";
$a =~ s/\\x([0-9A-Fa-f]+)/chr(hex($1))/ge;
utf8::decode($a);
printf "length=%d, ord=0x%x\n", length($a), ord($a);

[download]
Outputs: 
length=1, ord=0x100

[download]

Dave.

In reply to Re: Converting string literal represetation of utf to utf8 by dave_the_m
in thread Converting string literal represetation of utf to utf8 by djihed

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