Somewhere between 3.15 and 3.29 there was utf8 encoding added. I'm not sure if it will solve your problem(s) but maybe upgrading helps. The following was added to the param() method:

    my $charset = $self->charset || '';
    my $utf8    = $charset eq 'utf-8';
    if ($utf8) {
      eval "require Encode; 1;" if $utf8 && !Encode->can('decode'); # 
+bring in these functions
      return wantarray ? map {Encode::decode(utf8=>$_) } @{$self->{$na
+me}} 
                       : Encode::decode(utf8=>$self->{$name}->[0]);
    } else {
      return wantarray ? @{$self->{$name}} : $self->{$name}->[0];
    }

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In reply to Re: CGI.pm: automatically decode param() by Corion
in thread CGI.pm: automatically decode param() by moritz

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