Perl and Postgresql UTF8 problems with directories - perl

Question

I am having trouble with directory names with UTF8 characters in them on a Mac (10.11.2) with Perl 5.22 and Postgresql (9.4). Text encoding in Postgresql is set to UTF8.
If I have a directory name with a non-ascii UTF8 character in it I can chdir() to that directory if the directory name is read in by the Perl script or inserted into a string in the Perl script. If I insert this name into a PG table and read it back out (SELECT dirname FROM utfdirs) I can't chdir to that directory. However, the on screen printed strings are identical, a Perl cmp test on the two strings reports they are identical, and guess_encoding() reports both are UTF8.
#!/opt/local/bin/perl5.22
use strict;
use Cwd;
use DBI;
use Encode;
use Encode qw/from_to/;
use Encode::Detect;
use Encode::Guess;
use Encode::UTF8Mac;
#
Encode::Guess->add_suspects(qw/utf-8-mac/);
#
my $dbname = 'test';
my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:Pg:dbname=$dbname;host=localhost");
$dbh->do("SET client_min_messages TO WARNING");
#
my $homeDir = '/Users/jldasch';
chdir($homeDir) or die "Cannot cd to [$homeDir]\n";
opendir(D,".");
my #tdlist = sort grep(/(Lambda?)|(Delta?)/,readdir(D));
closedir(D);
$dbh->do("DELETE FROM utfdirs");
my $ins = $dbh->prepare("INSERT INTO utfdirs (dirname) VALUES (?)");
foreach my $d (#tdlist) {
chdir($homeDir);
my $ok = chdir($d) ? 1 : 0;
my $fp = "${homeDir}/${d}";
printf("%2d %s\n",$ok,$fp);
$ins->execute($fp);
}
my $rset = $dbh->selectall_arrayref("SELECT dirname FROM utfdirs ORDER BY dirname");
my $i = 0;
foreach my $r (#$rset) {
my $dbdir = $r->[0];
my $pdir = ${homeDir} . '/' . $tdlist[$i++];
print "$r->[0] $pdir\n";
my $encPerl = guess_encoding($pdir);
my $encDb = guess_encoding($dbdir);
print "Perl Encoding [$encPerl->{Name}]\n";
print "Db Encoding [$encDb->{Name}]\n";
unless ( chdir($dbdir) ) {
print "Cannot CD to DbDir [$dbdir]\n";
print "DbDir and PerlDir Match\n" if ($dbdir eq $pdir)
}
exit;
The output:
bash-3.2$ ./utfstuff2.pl
1 /Users/jldasch/DeltaΔ
1 /Users/jldasch/Lambdaλ
/Users/jldasch/DeltaΔ /Users/jldasch/DeltaΔ
Perl Encoding [utf8]
Db Encoding [utf8]
Cannot CD to DbDir [/Users/jldasch/DeltaΔ]
DbDir and PerlDir Match
/Users/jldasch/Lambdaλ /Users/jldasch/Lambdaλ
Perl Encoding [utf8]
Db Encoding [utf8]
Cannot CD to DbDir [/Users/jldasch/Lambdaλ]
DbDir and PerlDir Match
So at the level I have checked so far Perl is telling me the strings are the same (both cmp and guess_encoding()), they print the same, but they are not the same.
How do I convert the UTF8 string returned by Postgresql to a string which is accepted (in Perl) as a valid directory name for chdir()?

Answer 1

There is a module Encode::UTF8Mac which appears to solve this.
my $macOkDir = Encode::decode('utf-8-mac',$dbDir)
– John Daschbach