I did the convert ansi->oem for my script file before running it, and ran it again, but this time neither of the save attempts retrieved any suggestions from the google tool.

You can see for yourself, assuming the perlmonks code grepper works for these weird characters.

# adwordsDebugGermanOem.pl
use strict;

use HTTP::Request::Common; # HTTP handling
use LWP::UserAgent; # HTTP handling

my $query = 'b�rse';
my $www;

#doesn't work.
#sends $query = 'b�rse';
$www = google_keyword_suggestions_html_debug('de', 'de', $query);
open F, "> doesntwork.html" or die "Cannot open.";
print F $www->content,"\n";
close F;    


#works -- keyword suggestions are retrieved
#sends $query = 'b��rse';
#keyword suggestions are retrieved, although the html is kind of warpe
+d looking.
$query = germanchars_to_strange_html_chars($query);
$www = google_keyword_suggestions_html_debug('de', 'de', $query);
open F, "> works.html" or die "Cannot open.";
print F $www->content,"\n";
close F;        

# returns $www object containing html for a successful code, or an err
+or code
sub google_keyword_suggestions_html_debug {

    my $language = shift;
    my $country = shift;
    my $query = shift; #this could be a list, but leaving it as a sing
+le word.  maybe change later. 
        
    my $action = POST
        'https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox',
        [
            'save'  => "save",
            'wizard_name' => "keywordsandbox_wizard",
            'language' => $language,
            'country' => $country,
            'keywords' => $query,
        ];
    
    my $ua = LWP::UserAgent->new;
    $ua->agent('Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1)');
    $ua->timeout(30);
    my $www = $ua->request( $action );
    return $www;
}

# Takes a variable and spits it back out with the proper german charac
+ters
sub germanchars_to_strange_html_chars {
    my $var = shift;
    my %table = ( '�' => '�Y', '�' => '��', '�' => '��',
              '�' => '��', '�' => '��', '�' => 'Ǭ',
              '�' => 'Ǭ');


    while (my ($k,$v) = each %table) {
        $var =~ s/$k/$v/g;
    }

    return $var;
}
[download]

Any other ideas?

ah, well, i see.

you will have to install the module Crypt::SSLeay. try

#top of script
use Data::Dumper;
....
my $www = $ua->request( $action );
print Dumper ($www);
[download]

and you will be enlightend.


But that has nothing to do with char encoding.

sorry for not reading your post properly, though.