utf8 - Perl pragma to enable/disable UTF-8 in source code


NAME

utf8 - Perl pragma to enable/disable UTF-8 in source code


SYNOPSIS

    use utf8;
    no utf8;


DESCRIPTION

WARNING: The implementation of Unicode support in Perl is incomplete. See the perlunicode manpage for the exact details.

The use utf8 pragma tells the Perl parser to allow UTF-8 in the program text in the current lexical scope. The no utf8 pragma tells Perl to switch back to treating the source text as literal bytes in the current lexical scope.

This pragma is primarily a compatibility device. Perl versions earlier than 5.6 allowed arbitrary bytes in source code, whereas in future we would like to standardize on the UTF-8 encoding for source text. Until UTF-8 becomes the default format for source text, this pragma should be used to recognize UTF-8 in the source. When UTF-8 becomes the standard source format, this pragma will effectively become a no-op. This pragma already is a no-op on EBCDIC platforms (where it is alright to code perl in EBCDIC rather than UTF-8).

Enabling the utf8 pragma has the following effects:


SEE ALSO

the perlunicode manpage, the bytes manpage

 utf8 - Perl pragma to enable/disable UTF-8 in source code