note mje <code> while ( $sth_sel->fetch ) { $txt = $txt; printf "%3u %3u %3u %s [%s] [%s]\n", ++$i, length($txt), bytes::length($txt), (utf8::is_utf8($txt) ? ' utf8' : '!utf8'), $txt, $xml; } </code> <p>made no difference.</p> 860211 860229