You can use Data::Dumper with Useqq(1): 
use Data::Dumper;
sub to_string {
  Data::Dumper->new([])->Terse(1)->Indent(0)->Useqq(1)->Values([$_[0]]
+)->Dump;
}

say to_string(chr(13)); # "\r"
say to_string(chr(10)); # "\n"
say to_string(chr(97)); # "a"
say to_string(chr(31)); # "\37"

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In reply to Re: Printing escaped values of control characters by perl5ever
in thread Printing escaped values of control characters by miketosh

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