karoshi:~>LC_CTYPE=de_DE.UTF-8 ./u8demo.pl I read a line, that is 1 chars long. That line is: ö That line in ascii is: o karoshi:~>LC_CTYPE=C ./u8demo.pl ascii "\xC3" does not map to Unicode at ./u8demo.pl line 12. ascii "\xB6" does not map to Unicode at ./u8demo.pl line 12. I read a line, that is 8 chars long. That line is: \xC3\xB6 That line in ascii is: \xC3\xB6