Would
HTML::Entities work for you? If not something like:
Code:
#!/usr/bin/perl
use warnings;
use strict;
use utf8;
use 5.10.1;
binmode STDOUT, 'utf8'; # needed on some terminals where you don't defsault to utf8
my $unicode_string="vis-à -vis Beyoncé's naïve\npapier-mâché résumé";
say "Start: $unicode_string";
$unicode_string =~s/([^[:ascii:]])/'&#' . ord($1) . ';'/ge;
say "End: $unicode_string";