What is the universal way to use file I/O API with unicode filenames?

Question

In Windows there is a common problem: the filenames should be converted to local codepage, before they are passed to open(). Of course, there is a possibility to use Win32::API for that, but I don't want my script to be platform-dependent. At the moment I have to write something like:

open IN, "<", encode("cp1251", $filename) or die $!; 

but is there any library, that hides these details? I think the local codepage can be automatically detected, so I just want to pass unicode filename and forget about the details. Why is it still not in the box?

Answer 1

It used to just work until 5.8.1, then Jarkko took it out, and broke the -C switch in an gratutious incompatible change on top. This makes Windows a second class citizen and annoys me until today, because any other dynamic language does not have this ridiculous defect. Perhaps now is a good time that we could hear a justification for this change for the worse.

Anyway, you want PerlIO::fse, but it's not a perfect solution, as you will soon discover on your own.