I think you are right. The best way is to write in the help of the script that its STDOUT is encoded as UTF8.

I looked around how to do change the encoding of "cmd.exe".

I could do it temporarily as follows:

• change font to "Lucida Console"
• enter chcp 65001 to change the encoding to UTF8

But the change of the new codepage 65001 is NOT stored permanently. If I open a new "cmd.exe" its codepage is 437 again.

A bit offtopic because this question is windows specific and not perl: Do you know how to change the codepage permanently to 65001 in Windows XP?

Would you recommend to write the following code at the beginning of the script:

`chcp 65001`;

So I would assure that the encoding is UTF8. Of course I should find out the active codepage (e.g. 437) at the beginning of the script and then restore it at the end (perhaps in an END block). And I should also do it dependent on the OS. This for example would be a windows specific solution.