Encode::CN(3perl)

💖 Encode::CN — China-based Chinese Encodings 💖

okay so bestie, this is Encode::CN, straight out of the Perl Programmers Reference Guide. It's the little module that handles Chinese charsets from China, and honestly? she's a lot. let's get into it 🎀

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

use Encode qw/encode decode/;
$euc_cn = encode("euc-cn", $utf8);   # loads Encode::CN implicitly
$utf8   = decode("euc-cn", $euc_cn); # ditto

no cap, the module just kinda shows up on its own when you ask for the encoding — it loads itself implicitly. main character energy fr 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so this module implements the China-based Chinese charset encodings. here's the whole roster, canonical name first, then the aliases, then the vibe:

• euc-cn — aliases: /\beuc.*cn$/i, /\bcn.*euc$/i, /\bGB[-_ ]?2312(?:\D.*$|$)/i (see below). Description: EUC (Extended Unix Character).
• gb2312-raw — the raw (low-bit) GB2312 character map. yes, raw. lowercase bits and all.
• gb12345-raw — the Traditional chinese counterpart to GB2312 (raw). 🦋
• iso-ir-165 — GB2312 + GB6345 + GB8565 + additions. it's giving collab.
• MacChineseSimp — GB2312 + Apple Additions. 🍎
• cp936 — Code Page 936, also known as GBK (Extended GuoBiao).
• hz — 7-bit escaped GB2312 encoding.

and if you wanna know how to actually use this module in detail, go see Encode. she's the parent, she has the lore. 💜

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👑 NOTES 👑

okay important tea: due to size concerns, GB 18030 (which is an extension to GBK) is distributed separately on CPAN, under the name Encode::HanExtra. and that module also contains extra Taiwan-based encodings, so if you're looking for those, that's where they went. she moved out. 🧳✨

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💀 BUGS 💀

so when you see charset=gb2312 on mails and web pages?? they really mean euc-cn encodings. iconic of them to lie. 😭 to fix that, gb2312 is aliased to euc-cn. so use gb2312-raw when you really mean it — don't get played, bestie.

also: the ASCII region (0x00-0x7f) is preserved for all encodings, even though this conflicts with mappings by the Unicode Consortium. so like, yes, it's a whole thing, and no, we're not changing it. 🫠

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• Encode

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that's the whole page, bestie, you ate it 💅✨ — this was Encode::CN(3perl) from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide, landing with perl v5.44.0 on 2026-10-17. periodt. 🎀🦋⭐