#!/usr/bin/perl use v5.14; use warnings; use utf8::all; use JSON::PP qw( decode_json ); use File::Slurp qw( read_file ); use Data::Dumper; my $wl = '{"creche": "crèche", "¥": "£", "₡": "волн" }'; open my $fh, '>', 't2'; say {$fh} $wl; close $fh; my $pattern_list = decode_json( read_file('t2') ); print Dumper $pattern_list;