note snoopy20 I simply want to parse $ENV{QUERY_STRING} and convert any % encodings into the correct £, € or whatever (in unicode). I would rather not rely on external libraries where possible but right not I'll take anything that works. The closest I've got is the \x encodings which is not enough. Whoops I meant STDIN, but it's encoded the same anyways ( /^application\/x-www-form-urlencoded/) 964503 964724