in reply to convert non-ascii chars

If you just want to replace all kind of "funny" quotes by single straight quotes, you can try:
use Modern::Perl;
my $string = 'Test:' . chr(0x0022) . chr(0x00AB) . chr(0x201C) . chr(0
+x201F) . chr(0x301D);
$string =~ s/\p{Quotation_Mark}/'/g;
say $string;

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CountZero

A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James

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