But the OP said the flag is not set.

edit

not sure what -CSD means.

update

got it perlrun

The -C flag controls some of the Perl Unicode features.


As of 5.8.1, the -C can be followed either by a number or a list of option letters. The letters, their numeric values, and effects are as follows; listing the letters is equal to summing the numbers.


        I     1   STDIN is assumed to be in UTF-8
        O     2   STDOUT will be in UTF-8
        E     4   STDERR will be in UTF-8
        S     7   I + O + E
        i     8   UTF-8 is the default PerlIO layer for input streams
        o    16   UTF-8 is the default PerlIO layer for output streams
        D    24   i + o

Quite right. Those are the default I/O UTF-8 flags. tchrist included some of them in his recommendations on that monster SO post. Included just as an example of what’s correct. If the length is giving bytes instead of length. It’s broken already and that step, or one before it, is the problem. If the OP included an SSCCE, I’d be more helpful. Possibly… :P