use Devel::Peek; my $str = "\x{20AC}"; Dump($str); __END__ SV = PV(0x15c0d70) at 0x15e0440 REFCNT = 1 FLAGS = (POK,IsCOW,pPOK,UTF8) PV = 0x15e4e10 "\342\202\254"\0 [UTF8 "\x{20ac}"] CUR = 3 LEN = 10 COW_REFCNT = 1