#!perl -w
use warnings;
use strict;
{
  use utf8;
  my $string = 'ə'; 
  # this is a schwa in UTF-8, darned handy in linguistics
  print length $string,"\t",$string, "\n";

  my $filestring = <DATA>;
  chomp $filestring;
  print length $filestring, "\t", $filestring, "\n";
  # seems like it should print "1" here... but it prints 2!
}
{
  my $string = '&#601;';
  print length $string,"\t",$string, "\n";

  my $filestring = <DATA>;
  chomp $filestring;
  print length $filestring, "\t", $filestring, "\n";
}
__DATA__
&#601;
&#601;