This is a BOM for UTF-16 Big Endian-encoded files.

You are mistaken. It's the BOM, period. It can be encoded using UTF-8 and UTF-16le just as easily as with UTF-16be. 

$ perl -MEncode -e'print encode("UTF-8", chr(0xFEFF))' | od -t x1
0000000 ef bb bf
0000003

$ perl -MEncode -e'print encode("UTF-16be", chr(0xFEFF))' | od -t x1
0000000 fe ff
0000002

$ perl -MEncode -e'print encode("UTF-16le", chr(0xFEFF))' | od -t x1
0000000 ff fe
0000002

[download]
FEFFBOM
2B,2F,76,38,2DBOM encoded using UTF-7
EF,BB,BFBOM encoded using UTF-8
FE,FFBOM encoded using UTF-16be
FF,FEBOM encoded using UTF-16le
00,00,FE,FFBOM encoded using UTF-32be
FF,FE,00,00BOM encoded using UTF-32le

So you won't find FE,FF in a UTF-8 file, but just like in a UTF-16be file, you can find an encoded FEFF in a UTF-8 file.

In reply to Re^7: UTF-8 text files with Byte Order Mark by ikegami
in thread UTF-8 text files with Byte Order Mark by muba

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.