Hi, I noticed that in Encode versions higher than 1.83 (which came with Perl 5.8.0), including the recent 1.99, the predefine_encodings() subroutine has been expanded by *cat_decode(). Not sure what this is for, but it now requires Encode.pm to always require bytes.pm on BEGIN, even if it is not needed. In order to keep the %INC list as small as possible, for speed optimisation, I thought the dependancy to bytes.pm may be removed by changing the current code
use bytes; to # this may be an alternative to always require bytes.pm on BEGIN: Encode::_utf8_off($rsrc); Encode::_utf8_off($trm); I think switching to the bytes semantics was only done in regards to $rsrc and $trm so why not using the alternative method mentioned above? best, rob. --