use strict;
use charnames ":full";

my $string = "\N{LATIN SMALL LIGATURE FFI}";
print "length: ",length($string),"\n"; # wrong way

my $len = () = $string=~/\X/g;
print "len: $len\n";

my @graphs  = split /\X\K(?=\X)/, $string;
print "graphs: ", 0+@graphs, "\n";

__END__

length: 1
len: 1
graphs: 1