in reply to Re^6: substr function
in thread substr function

Exactly!

Which is why I was careful to write "there are at least three valid, meaningful ways to measure the size of [Unicode] text."

See Unicode Standard Annex #11: EAST ASIAN WIDTH and Unicode Standard Annex #14: Unicode Line Breaking Algorithm for the gory details. Use Unicode::LineBreak and Unicode::GCString in your Perl programs.