When I converted my script to utf8 with editpad before running it, it worked. (Originally Holli had suggested that I convert to "dos mode", which I interpreted as running convert Ansi->OEM in editpad (since that's what the editpad help file calls dosmode). However, if I had run convert ANSI->utf8, I would have had success and saved myself many hours of head scratching. OTOH, at least I'm beginning to get a better understanding for troubleshooting encoding issues, and I hope by sharing my experience I may help others.

During the headscratching phase, I painstakingly put together the following chart comparing utf8 and windows ansi.

symbol	encoding	editpad hex mode display	editpad normal mode displays
ö	ansi windows	f6	ö
ö	utf8	c3b6	ö
ö	dos mode (oem)	94	”

Editpad users (limited time demo version available for download) may appreciate the following info. Windows Ansi is editpad's default mode. utf8 characters were derived by running editpad->convert->unicode->ansi to utf8. dos mode characters, I ran convert->ANSI to OEM. Hex mode results for all of the above were derived in editpad by switching to hexmode with ctrl-h.

I conclude that CGI::enurl does not work at spitting out appropriate post characters when fed german characters encoded with the windows default. Or put more simply, cgi::enurl is windows unfriendly. I wonder if there is a way to contribute to cgi::enurl and URI::Escape (which works the same way), to make them more windows friendly. But I will leave this to another day.

thomas.

Reference for encoding table:

http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/reference/sbcs/1252.htm

enurl('börse') gives

b%F6rse

on my system, whereas it gives

börse

on your system. I am guessing we have different perl versions, different module versions, or different default encodings.

perl -MCGI::Enurl -e"print $CGI::Enurl::VERSION" > enUrlVersion.txt
[download]

<code>
perl -v > perlVoutput.txt
[download]

thomas.

*******

UPDATE: Relevant (though so far not helpful) documentation seems to be at:

• Perlfaq9 How do I decode or create those %-encodings on the web?... which suggests, "if that didn't explain it, don't worry. Just go read section 2 of the RFC (2396), it's probably the best explanation there is.".
• RFC 2396