in reply to Handle UTF-8 with DBI

Perhaps you want Class::DBI::utf8 (which attempts to Do The Right Thing)? Even if you do not need the Class::DBI structure, you should be able to find what you need in the source. Extracting wildly:

 if (defined $string) 
 {
    utf8::upgrade($string);  
    Encode::_utf8_on($string);
    Encode::_utf8_off($string) if (!utf8::valid($string));
 }

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In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom