perl -wE'
use Encode;
use Devel::Peek;
my $bytes = "ä ö ü";
my $chars = decode_utf8("ä ö ü");
my $latin1 = encode(latin1 => $chars);
Dump $bytes;
Dump $chars;
Dump $latin1;
'
# $bytes
SV = PV(0x850b78) at 0x86fc20
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (PADMY,POK,pPOK)
  PV = 0x86a4e0 "\303\244 \303\266 \303\274"\0
  CUR = 8
  LEN = 16

# $chars
SV = PV(0x851228) at 0x86fc68
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (PADMY,POK,pPOK,UTF8)
  PV = 0x8a9d00 "\303\244 \303\266 \303\274"\0 [UTF8 "\x{e4} \x{f6} \x{fc}"]
  CUR = 8
  LEN = 16

# $latin1
SV = PV(0x8514e8) at 0x86fc08
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (PADMY,POK,pPOK)
  PV = 0x94e9b0 "\344 \366 \374"\0
  CUR = 5
  LEN = 8