Data::Dumper is your friend. I usually just convert the scalar to unicode using Encode, and then dump it. Use load to reverse the process.

#!/usr/bin/perl -wl

$encoding = shift @ARGV;
$word = shift @ARGV;

defined $encoding and defined $word or die 'give me an encoding and a 
+word to convert';

use Encode;
use Data::Dumper q(Dumper);
print Dumper( decode $encoding, $word );
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