I thought I had solved this problem, but still having issues using spanish characters with a hash. I dont get a result if I use this $spanishword = &trim (" Espere para verificar el estado del operador. "); . I will get a result if I use this $spanishword = &trim (" Forward ");. I know its a problem with encoding. I tried saving my .pl and .txt files as ANSI and UTF-8, but still does not work. Is it the version of perl I am using thats causing the problem? ActivePerl 5.8.8 Build 819. If someone can get this to work, can they send me the encoding they are using and perl version. 
#!/usr/bin/perl

use warnings;
use strict;

## LAN filename for translation
my $filetwo="test2.txt";

## Translated debug file
my $fileout="out.txt";

my $linein;
my $englishword;
my $spanishword;
my %langhash;
my @arrayin;

## Open Lan file to read in the English and Spanish words
open (FILEIN2, $filetwo)  or die "Can't open debug file to be translat
+ed.\n";;
open (FILEOUT, ">$fileout")  or die "Can't open output file.\n";;

## Go through each line and replace
while ($linein = <FILEIN2>) {
        chomp $linein;
        @arrayin = split /:/, $linein;         ##creates an array with
+ split function using : as separator
        
        if (exists $arrayin[0] && $arrayin[0] eq "Default")
        {
        $englishword = $arrayin[1];
        }
        if (exists $arrayin[0] && $arrayin[0] eq "Spanish_LatinAmerica
+n|es_MX")
        {
        $spanishword = $arrayin[1];
        }
        if (exists $arrayin[0] && $arrayin[0] eq "Spanish_LatinAmerica
+n|es_MX")
        {        
        $langhash{$spanishword} = $englishword;
}
}
##      while (($spanishword, $englishword) = each %langhash){    ##Pr
+int entire hash tableS
##        print "$englishword => $spanishword\n";
##      }

close(FILEIN2);
close(FILEOUT);

##while (($spanishword, $englishword) = each %langhash){    ##Print en
+tire hash tableS
##        print "$englishword => $spanishword\n";
##        print "$langhash{$spanishword}\n";
##      }


$spanishword = &trim ("   Espere para verificar el estado del operador
+.  ");

if (exists $langhash{$spanishword}){
print "$langhash{$spanishword}\n";
}
else 
{
print "No match\n";
}

sub trim {
   for (my $s = $_[0]) {
      s/^\s+//;
      s/\s+$//;
      return $_;
   }
}

[download]
Here is an example of my test2.txt file: 
Comment:No Translation Needed
Default:digit incorrect.
Translate: FALSE
Spanish_LatinAmerican|es_MX:dígito verificador incorrecto.

Comment: This message is spoken to an operator when the "release licen
+se" voice command is used. The message confirms to the operator that 
+the license was released.
Default:Say ready.
Translate: FALSE
Spanish_LatinAmerican|es_MX:listo.

Comment: This message is spoken to an operator when the "release licen
+se" voice command is used. The message confirms to the operator that 
+the license was released.
Default:Reverse
Translate: FALSE
Spanish_LatinAmerican|es_MX:Forward

Comment: The task is telling the operator that they specified an incor
+rect location.
Default: Incorrect location.
Spanish_LatinAmerican|es_MX: Ubicación incorrecta.

Comment: Tells the operator that the operator status is being checked.
Default: Please wait to check operator status
Spanish_LatinAmerican|es_MX: Espere para verificar el estado del opera
+dor.

[download]

In reply to Still having problems with spanish characters by qnguyen

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