Encode(3perl) Perl Programmers Reference Guide Encode(3perl)
NAME
Encode - character encodings in Perl
SYNOPSIS
use Encode qw(decode encode);
$characters = decode('UTF-8', $octets, Encode::FB_CROAK);
$octets = encode('UTF-8', $characters, Encode::FB_CROAK);
Table of Contents
Encode consists of a collection of modules whose details are too
extensive to fit in one document. This one itself explains the top-
level APIs and general topics at a glance. For other topics and more
details, see the documentation for these modules:
Encode::Alias - Alias definitions to encodings
Encode::Encoding - Encode Implementation Base Class
Encode::Supported - List of Supported Encodings
Encode::CN - Simplified Chinese Encodings
Encode::JP - Japanese Encodings
Encode::KR - Korean Encodings
Encode::TW - Traditional Chinese Encodings
DESCRIPTION
The "Encode" module provides the interface between Perl strings and the
rest of the system. Perl strings are sequences of characters.
The repertoire of characters that Perl can represent is a superset of
those defined by the Unicode Consortium. On most platforms the ordinal
values of a character as returned by ord(S) is the Unicode codepoint for
that character. The exceptions are platforms where the legacy encoding
is some variant of EBCDIC rather than a superset of ASCII; see
perlebcdic.
During recent history, data is moved around a computer in 8-bit chunks,
often called "bytes" but also known as "octets" in standards documents.
Perl is widely used to manipulate data of many types: not only strings
of characters representing human or computer languages, but also
"binary" data, being the machine's representation of numbers, pixels in
an image, or just about anything.
When Perl is processing "binary data", the programmer wants Perl to
process "sequences of bytes". This is not a problem for Perl: because a
byte has 256 possible values, it easily fits in Perl's much larger
"logical character".
This document mostly explains the how. perlunitut and perlunifaq explain
the why.
TERMINOLOGY
character
A character in the range 0 .. 2**32-1 (or more); what Perl's strings are
made of.
byte
A character in the range 0..255; a special case of a Perl character.
octet
8 bits of data, with ordinal values 0..255; term for bytes passed to or
from a non-Perl context, such as a disk file, standard I/O stream,
database, command-line argument, environment variable, socket etc.
THE PERL ENCODING API
Basic methods
encode
$octets = encode(ENCODING, STRING[, CHECK])
Encodes the scalar value STRING from Perl's internal form into ENCODING
and returns a sequence of octets. ENCODING can be either a canonical
name or an alias. For encoding names and aliases, see "Defining
Aliases". For CHECK, see "Handling Malformed Data".
CAVEAT: the input scalar STRING might be modified in-place depending on
what is set in CHECK. See "LEAVE_SRC" if you want your inputs to be left
unchanged.
For example, to convert a string from Perl's internal format into
ISO-8859-1, also known as Latin1:
$octets = encode("iso-8859-1", $string);
CAVEAT: When you run "$octets = encode("UTF-8", $string)", then $octets
might not be equal to $string. Though both contain the same data, the
UTF8 flag for $octets is always off. When you encode anything, the UTF8
flag on the result is always off, even when it contains a completely
valid UTF-8 string. See "The UTF8 flag" below.
If the $string is "undef", then "undef" is returned.
"str2bytes" may be used as an alias for "encode".
decode
$string = decode(ENCODING, OCTETS[, CHECK])
This function returns the string that results from decoding the scalar
value OCTETS, assumed to be a sequence of octets in ENCODING, into
Perl's internal form. As with encode(), ENCODING can be either a
canonical name or an alias. For encoding names and aliases, see
"Defining Aliases"; for CHECK, see "Handling Malformed Data".
CAVEAT: the input scalar OCTETS might be modified in-place depending on
what is set in CHECK. See "LEAVE_SRC" if you want your inputs to be left
unchanged.
For example, to convert ISO-8859-1 data into a string in Perl's internal
format:
$string = decode("iso-8859-1", $octets);
CAVEAT: When you run "$string = decode("UTF-8", $octets)", then $string
might not be equal to $octets. Though both contain the same data, the
UTF8 flag for $string is on. See "The UTF8 flag" below.
If the $string is "undef", then "undef" is returned.
"bytes2str" may be used as an alias for "decode".
find_encoding
[$obj =] find_encoding(ENCODING)
Returns the encoding object corresponding to ENCODING. Returns "undef"
if no matching ENCODING is find. The returned object is what does the
actual encoding or decoding.
$string = decode($name, $bytes);
is in fact
$string = do {
$obj = find_encoding($name);
croak qq(encoding "$name" not found) unless ref $obj;
$obj->decode($bytes);
};
with more error checking.
You can therefore save time by reusing this object as follows;
my $enc = find_encoding("iso-8859-1");
while(<>) {
my $string = $enc->decode($_);
... # now do something with $string;
}
Besides "decode" and "encode", other methods are available as well. For
instance, name() returns the canonical name of the encoding object.
find_encoding("latin1")->name; # iso-8859-1
See Encode::Encoding for details.
find_mime_encoding
[$obj =] find_mime_encoding(MIME_ENCODING)
Returns the encoding object corresponding to MIME_ENCODING. Acts same
as find_encoding() but mime_name() of returned object must match to
MIME_ENCODING. So as opposite of find_encoding() canonical names and
aliases are not used when searching for object.
find_mime_encoding("utf8"); # returns undef because "utf8" is not a valid MIME_ENCODING
find_mime_encoding("utf-8"); # returns encode object "utf-8-strict"
find_mime_encoding("UTF-8"); # same as "utf-8" because MIME_ENCODING is case insensitive
find_mime_encoding("utf-8-strict"); returns undef because "utf-8-strict" is not a valid MIME_ENCODING
from_to
[$length =] from_to($octets, FROM_ENC, TO_ENC [, CHECK])
Converts in-place data between two encodings. The data in $octets must
be encoded as octets and not as characters in Perl's internal format.
For example, to convert ISO-8859-1 data into Microsoft's CP1250
encoding:
from_to($octets, "iso-8859-1", "cp1250");
and to convert it back:
from_to($octets, "cp1250", "iso-8859-1");
Because the conversion happens in place, the data to be converted cannot
be a string constant: it must be a scalar variable.
from_to() returns the length of the converted string in octets on
success, and "undef" on error.
CAVEAT: The following operations may look the same, but are not:
from_to($data, "iso-8859-1", "UTF-8"); #1
$data = decode("iso-8859-1", $data); #2
Both #1 and #2 make $data consist of a completely valid UTF-8 string,
but only #2 turns the UTF8 flag on. #1 is equivalent to:
$data = encode("UTF-8", decode("iso-8859-1", $data));
See "The UTF8 flag" below.
Also note that:
from_to($octets, $from, $to, $check);
is equivalent to:
$octets = encode($to, decode($from, $octets), $check);
Yes, it does not respect the $check during decoding. It is deliberately
done that way. If you need minute control, use "decode" followed by
"encode" as follows:
$octets = encode($to, decode($from, $octets, $check_from), $check_to);
encode_utf8
$octets = encode_utf8($string);
WARNING: This function can produce invalid UTF-8! Do not use it for
data exchange. Unless you want Perl's older "lax" mode, prefer "$octets
= encode("UTF-8", $string)".
Equivalent to "$octets = encode("utf8", $string)". The characters in
$string are encoded in Perl's internal format, and the result is
returned as a sequence of octets. Because all possible characters in
Perl have a (loose, not strict) utf8 representation, this function
cannot fail.
decode_utf8
$string = decode_utf8($octets [, CHECK]);
WARNING: This function accepts invalid UTF-8! Do not use it for data
exchange. Unless you want Perl's older "lax" mode, prefer "$string =
decode("UTF-8", $octets [, CHECK])".
Equivalent to "$string = decode("utf8", $octets [, CHECK])". The
sequence of octets represented by $octets is decoded from (loose, not
strict) utf8 into a sequence of logical characters. Because not all
sequences of octets are valid not strict utf8, it is quite possible for
this function to fail. For CHECK, see "Handling Malformed Data".
CAVEAT: the input $octets might be modified in-place depending on what
is set in CHECK. See "LEAVE_SRC" if you want your inputs to be left
unchanged.
Listing available encodings
use Encode;
@list = Encode->encodings();
Returns a list of canonical names of available encodings that have
already been loaded. To get a list of all available encodings including
those that have not yet been loaded, say:
@all_encodings = Encode->encodings(":all");
Or you can give the name of a specific module:
@with_jp = Encode->encodings("Encode::JP");
When ""::"" is not in the name, ""Encode::"" is assumed.
@ebcdic = Encode->encodings("EBCDIC");
To find out in detail which encodings are supported by this package, see
Encode::Supported.
Defining Aliases
To add a new alias to a given encoding, use:
use Encode;
use Encode::Alias;
define_alias(NEWNAME => ENCODING);
After that, NEWNAME can be used as an alias for ENCODING. ENCODING may
be either the name of an encoding or an encoding object.
Before you do that, first make sure the alias is nonexistent using
resolve_alias(), which returns the canonical name thereof. For example:
Encode::resolve_alias("latin1") eq "iso-8859-1" # true
Encode::resolve_alias("iso-8859-12") # false; nonexistent
Encode::resolve_alias($name) eq $name # true if $name is canonical
resolve_alias() does not need "use Encode::Alias"; it can be imported
via "use Encode qw(resolve_alias)".
See Encode::Alias for details.
Finding IANA Character Set Registry names
The canonical name of a given encoding does not necessarily agree with
IANA Character Set Registry, commonly seen as "Content-Type: text/plain;
charset=WHATEVER". For most cases, the canonical name works, but
sometimes it does not, most notably with "utf-8-strict".
As of "Encode" version 2.21, a new method mime_name() is therefore
added.
use Encode;
my $enc = find_encoding("UTF-8");
warn $enc->name; # utf-8-strict
warn $enc->mime_name; # UTF-8
See also: Encode::Encoding
Encoding via PerlIO
If your perl supports "PerlIO" (which is the default), you can use a
"PerlIO" layer to decode and encode directly via a filehandle. The
following two examples are fully identical in functionality:
### Version 1 via PerlIO
open(INPUT, "< :encoding(shiftjis)", $infile)
|| die "Can't open < $infile for reading: $!";
open(OUTPUT, "> :encoding(euc-jp)", $outfile)
|| die "Can't open > $output for writing: $!";
while (<INPUT>) { # auto decodes $_
print OUTPUT; # auto encodes $_
}
close(INPUT) || die "can't close $infile: $!";
close(OUTPUT) || die "can't close $outfile: $!";
### Version 2 via from_to()
open(INPUT, "< :raw", $infile)
|| die "Can't open < $infile for reading: $!";
open(OUTPUT, "> :raw", $outfile)
|| die "Can't open > $output for writing: $!";
while (<INPUT>) {
from_to($_, "shiftjis", "euc-jp", 1); # switch encoding
print OUTPUT; # emit raw (but properly encoded) data
}
close(INPUT) || die "can't close $infile: $!";
close(OUTPUT) || die "can't close $outfile: $!";
In the first version above, you let the appropriate encoding layer
handle the conversion. In the second, you explicitly translate from one
encoding to the other.
Unfortunately, it may be that encodings are not "PerlIO"-savvy. You can
check to see whether your encoding is supported by "PerlIO" by invoking
the "perlio_ok" method on it:
Encode::perlio_ok("hz"); # false
find_encoding("euc-cn")->perlio_ok; # true wherever PerlIO is available
use Encode qw(perlio_ok); # imported upon request
perlio_ok("euc-jp")
Fortunately, all encodings that come with "Encode" core are
"PerlIO"-savvy except for "hz" and "ISO-2022-kr". For the gory details,
see Encode::Encoding and Encode::PerlIO.
Handling Malformed Data
The optional CHECK argument tells "Encode" what to do when encountering
malformed data. Without CHECK, "Encode::FB_DEFAULT" (== 0) is assumed.
As of version 2.12, "Encode" supports coderef values for "CHECK"; see
below.
NOTE: Not all encodings support this feature. Some encodings ignore the
CHECK argument. For example, Encode::Unicode ignores CHECK and it
always croaks on error.
List of CHECK values
FB_DEFAULT
CHECK = Encode::FB_DEFAULT ( == 0)
If CHECK is 0, encoding and decoding replace any malformed character
with a substitution character. When you encode, SUBCHAR is used. When
you decode, the Unicode REPLACEMENT CHARACTER, code point U+FFFD, is
used. If the data is supposed to be UTF-8, an optional lexical warning
of warning category "utf8" is given.
FB_CROAK
CHECK = Encode::FB_CROAK ( == 1)
If CHECK is 1, methods immediately die with an error message.
Therefore, when CHECK is 1, you should trap exceptions with "eval{}",
unless you really want to let it "die".
FB_QUIET
CHECK = Encode::FB_QUIET
If CHECK is set to "Encode::FB_QUIET", encoding and decoding immediately
return the portion of the data that has been processed so far when an
error occurs. The data argument is overwritten with everything after
that point; that is, the unprocessed portion of the data. This is handy
when you have to call "decode" repeatedly in the case where your source
data may contain partial multi-byte character sequences, (that is, you
are reading with a fixed-width buffer). Here's some sample code to do
exactly that:
my($buffer, $string) = ("", "");
while (read($fh, $buffer, 256, length($buffer))) {
$string .= decode($encoding, $buffer, Encode::FB_QUIET);
# $buffer now contains the unprocessed partial character
}
FB_WARN
CHECK = Encode::FB_WARN
This is the same as "FB_QUIET" above, except that instead of being
silent on errors, it issues a warning. This is handy for when you are
debugging.
CAVEAT: All warnings from Encode module are reported, independently of
pragma warnings settings. If you want to follow settings of lexical
warnings configured by pragma warnings then append also check value
"ENCODE::ONLY_PRAGMA_WARNINGS". This value is available since Encode
version 2.99.
FB_PERLQQ FB_HTMLCREF FB_XMLCREF
perlqq mode (CHECK = Encode::FB_PERLQQ)
HTML charref mode (CHECK = Encode::FB_HTMLCREF)
XML charref mode (CHECK = Encode::FB_XMLCREF)
For encodings that are implemented by the "Encode::XS" module, "CHECK"
"==" "Encode::FB_PERLQQ" puts "encode" and "decode" into "perlqq"
fallback mode.
When you decode, "\xHH" is inserted for a malformed character, where HH
is the hex representation of the octet that could not be decoded to
utf8. When you encode, "\x{HHHH}" will be inserted, where HHHH is the
Unicode code point (in any number of hex digits) of the character that
cannot be found in the character repertoire of the encoding.
The HTML/XML character reference modes are about the same. In place of
"\x{HHHH}", HTML uses "&#NNN;" where NNN is a decimal number, and XML
uses "&#xHHHH;" where HHHH is the hexadecimal number.
In "Encode" 2.10 or later, "LEAVE_SRC" is also implied.
The bitmask
These modes are all actually set via a bitmask. Here is how the
"FB_XXX" constants are laid out. You can import the "FB_XXX" constants
via "use Encode qw(:fallbacks)", and you can import the generic bitmask
constants via "use Encode qw(:fallback_all)".
FB_DEFAULT FB_CROAK FB_QUIET FB_WARN FB_PERLQQ
DIE_ON_ERR 0x0001 X
WARN_ON_ERR 0x0002 X
RETURN_ON_ERR 0x0004 X X
LEAVE_SRC 0x0008 X
PERLQQ 0x0100 X
HTMLCREF 0x0200
XMLCREF 0x0400
LEAVE_SRC
Encode::LEAVE_SRC
If the "Encode::LEAVE_SRC" bit is not set but CHECK is set, then the
source string to encode() or decode() will be overwritten in place. If
you're not interested in this, then bitwise-OR it with the bitmask.
coderef for CHECK
As of "Encode" 2.12, "CHECK" can also be a code reference which takes
the ordinal value of the unmapped character as an argument and returns
octets that represent the fallback character. For instance:
$ascii = encode("ascii", $utf8, sub{ sprintf "<U+%04X>", shift });
Acts like "FB_PERLQQ" but U+XXXX is used instead of "\x{XXXX}".
Fallback for "decode" must return decoded string (sequence of
characters) and takes a list of ordinal values as its arguments. So for
example if you wish to decode octets as UTF-8, and use ISO-8859-15 as a
fallback for bytes that are not valid UTF-8, you could write
$str = decode 'UTF-8', $octets, sub {
my $tmp = join '', map chr, @_;
return decode 'ISO-8859-15', $tmp;
};
Defining Encodings
To define a new encoding, use:
use Encode qw(define_encoding);
define_encoding($object, CANONICAL_NAME [, alias...]);
CANONICAL_NAME will be associated with $object. The object should
provide the interface described in Encode::Encoding. If more than two
arguments are provided, additional arguments are considered aliases for
$object.
See Encode::Encoding for details.
The UTF8 flag
Before the introduction of Unicode support in Perl, the "eq" operator
just compared the strings represented by two scalars. Beginning with
Perl 5.8, "eq" compares two strings with simultaneous consideration of
the UTF8 flag. To explain why we made it so, I quote from page 402 of
Programming Perl, 3rd ed.
Goal #1:
Old byte-oriented programs should not spontaneously break on the old
byte-oriented data they used to work on.
Goal #2:
Old byte-oriented programs should magically start working on the new
character-oriented data when appropriate.
Goal #3:
Programs should run just as fast in the new character-oriented mode as
in the old byte-oriented mode.
Goal #4:
Perl should remain one language, rather than forking into a byte-
oriented Perl and a character-oriented Perl.
When Programming Perl, 3rd ed. was written, not even Perl 5.6.0 had been
born yet, many features documented in the book remained unimplemented
for a long time. Perl 5.8 corrected much of this, and the introduction
of the UTF8 flag is one of them. You can think of there being two
fundamentally different kinds of strings and string-operations in Perl:
one a byte-oriented mode for when the internal UTF8 flag is off, and
the other a character-oriented mode for when the internal UTF8 flag is
on.
This UTF8 flag is not visible in Perl scripts, exactly for the same
reason you cannot (or rather, you don't have to) see whether a scalar
contains a string, an integer, or a floating-point number. But you can
still peek and poke these if you will. See the next section.
Messing with Perl's Internals
The following API uses parts of Perl's internals in the current
implementation. As such, they are efficient but may change in a future
release.
is_utf8
is_utf8(STRING [, CHECK])
[INTERNAL] Tests whether the UTF8 flag is turned on in the STRING. If
CHECK is true, also checks whether STRING contains well-formed UTF-8.
Returns true if successful, false otherwise.
Typically only necessary for debugging and testing. Don't use this flag
as a marker to distinguish character and binary data, that should be
decided for each variable when you write your code.
CAVEAT: If STRING has UTF8 flag set, it does NOT mean that STRING is
UTF-8 encoded and vice-versa.
As of Perl 5.8.1, utf8 also has the "utf8::is_utf8" function.
_utf8_on
_utf8_on(STRING)
[INTERNAL] Turns the STRING's internal UTF8 flag on. The STRING is not
checked for containing only well-formed UTF-8. Do not use this unless
you know with absolute certainty that the STRING holds only well-formed
UTF-8. Returns the previous state of the UTF8 flag (so please don't
treat the return value as indicating success or failure), or "undef" if
STRING is not a string.
NOTE: For security reasons, this function does not work on tainted
values.
_utf8_off
_utf8_off(STRING)
[INTERNAL] Turns the STRING's internal UTF8 flag off. Do not use
frivolously. Returns the previous state of the UTF8 flag, or "undef" if
STRING is not a string. Do not treat the return value as indicative of
success or failure, because that isn't what it means: it is only the
previous setting.
NOTE: For security reasons, this function does not work on tainted
values.
UTF-8 vs. utf8 vs. UTF8
....We now view strings not as sequences of bytes, but as sequences
of numbers in the range 0 .. 2**32-1 (or in the case of 64-bit
computers, 0 .. 2**64-1) -- Programming Perl, 3rd ed.
That has historically been Perl's notion of UTF-8, as that is how UTF-8
was first conceived by Ken Thompson when he invented it. However, thanks
to later revisions to the applicable standards, official UTF-8 is now
rather stricter than that. For example, its range is much narrower (0 ..
0x10_FFFF to cover only 21 bits instead of 32 or 64 bits) and some
sequences are not allowed, like those used in surrogate pairs, the 31
non-character code points 0xFDD0 .. 0xFDEF, the last two code points in
any plane (0xXX_FFFE and 0xXX_FFFF), all non-shortest encodings, etc.
The former default in which Perl would always use a loose interpretation
of UTF-8 has now been overruled:
From: Larry Wall <larry@wall.org>
Date: December 04, 2004 11:51:58 JST
To: perl-unicode@perl.org
Subject: Re: Make Encode.pm support the real UTF-8
Message-Id: <20041204025158.GA28754@wall.org>
On Fri, Dec 03, 2004 at 10:12:12PM +0000, Tim Bunce wrote:
: I've no problem with 'utf8' being perl's unrestricted uft8 encoding,
: but "UTF-8" is the name of the standard and should give the
: corresponding behaviour.
For what it's worth, that's how I've always kept them straight in my
head.
Also for what it's worth, Perl 6 will mostly default to strict but
make it easy to switch back to lax.
Larry
Got that? As of Perl 5.8.7, "UTF-8" means UTF-8 in its current sense,
which is conservative and strict and security-conscious, whereas "utf8"
means UTF-8 in its former sense, which was liberal and loose and lax.
"Encode" version 2.10 or later thus groks this subtle but critically
important distinction between "UTF-8" and "utf8".
encode("utf8", "\x{FFFF_FFFF}", 1); # okay
encode("UTF-8", "\x{FFFF_FFFF}", 1); # croaks
This distinction is also important for decoding. In the following, $s
stores character U+200000, which exceeds UTF-8's allowed range. $s thus
stores an invalid Unicode code point:
$s = decode("utf8", "\xf8\x88\x80\x80\x80");
"UTF-8", by contrast, will either coerce the input to something valid:
$s = decode("UTF-8", "\xf8\x88\x80\x80\x80"); # U+FFFD
.. or croak:
decode("UTF-8", "\xf8\x88\x80\x80\x80", FB_CROAK|LEAVE_SRC);
In the "Encode" module, "UTF-8" is actually a canonical name for
"utf-8-strict". That hyphen between the "UTF" and the "8" is critical;
without it, "Encode" goes "liberal" and (perhaps overly-)permissive:
find_encoding("UTF-8")->name # is 'utf-8-strict'
find_encoding("utf-8")->name # ditto. names are case insensitive
find_encoding("utf_8")->name # ditto. "_" are treated as "-"
find_encoding("UTF8")->name # is 'utf8'.
Perl's internal UTF8 flag is called "UTF8", without a hyphen. It
indicates whether a string is internally encoded as "utf8", also without
a hyphen.
SEE ALSO
Encode::Encoding, Encode::Supported, Encode::PerlIO, encoding,
perlebcdic, "open" in perlfunc, perlunicode, perluniintro, perlunifaq,
perlunitut utf8, the Perl Unicode Mailing List
<http://lists.perl.org/list/perl-unicode.html>
MAINTAINER
This project was originated by the late Nick Ing-Simmons and later
maintained by Dan Kogai <dankogai@cpan.org>. See AUTHORS for a full
list of people involved. For any questions, send mail to
<perl-unicode@perl.org> so that we can all share.
While Dan Kogai retains the copyright as a maintainer, credit should go
to all those involved. See AUTHORS for a list of those who submitted
code to the project.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2002-2014 Dan Kogai <dankogai@cpan.org>.
This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
under the same terms as Perl itself.
perl v5.40.1 2026-08-30 Encode(3perl)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Sat Oct 3 06:00:32 CEST 2026.