From: PerlFAQ Server on
This is an excerpt from the latest version perlfaq4.pod, which
comes with the standard Perl distribution. These postings aim to
reduce the number of repeated questions as well as allow the community
to review and update the answers. The latest version of the complete
perlfaq is at http://faq.perl.org .

--------------------------------------------------------------------

4.71: How do I handle binary data correctly?

Perl is binary clean, so it can handle binary data just fine. On Windows
or DOS, however, you have to use "binmode" for binary files to avoid
conversions for line endings. In general, you should use "binmode" any
time you want to work with binary data.

Also see "binmode" in perlfunc or perlopentut.

If you're concerned about 8-bit textual data then see perllocale. If you
want to deal with multibyte characters, however, there are some gotchas.
See the section on Regular Expressions.



--------------------------------------------------------------------

The perlfaq-workers, a group of volunteers, maintain the perlfaq. They
are not necessarily experts in every domain where Perl might show up,
so please include as much information as possible and relevant in any
corrections. The perlfaq-workers also don't have access to every
operating system or platform, so please include relevant details for
corrections to examples that do not work on particular platforms.
Working code is greatly appreciated.

If you'd like to help maintain the perlfaq, see the details in
perlfaq.pod.