#!perl

use strict;
use warnings;
use utf8;
use DBI;
use Devel::Peek;
use Encode;

my $dbh = DBI->connect('DBI:mysql:database:server;mysql_enable_utf8=1', 'username', 'password');
die DBI::errstr() unless $dbh;

my $stmt = qq~SELECT raw FROM files WHERE file_id = ?~;
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($stmt);
$sth->execute(1);

my $row = $sth->fetchrow_hashref();
my $raw = $row->{raw};

Dump $raw;

$raw = decode('utf8', $raw);
Dump $raw;

$raw = encode('utf8', $raw);
Dump $raw;

exit(0);

__END__
SV = PV(0x35b7900) at 0x328d0f0
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (PADMY,POK,pPOK)
  PV = 0x306df38 "\303\244\303\266\303\274\303\237kekse!\303\252"\0
  CUR = 16
  LEN = 24
SV = PVMG(0x3539908) at 0x328d0f0
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (PADMY,POK,pPOK,UTF8)
  IV = 0
  NV = 0
  PV = 0x306bbb8 "\303\244\303\266\303\274\303\237kekse!\303\252"\0 [UTF8 "\x{e4}\x{f6}\x{fc}\x{df}kekse!\x{ea}"]
  CUR = 16
  LEN = 24
SV = PVMG(0x3539908) at 0x328d0f0
  REFCNT = 1
  FLAGS = (PADMY,POK,pPOK)
  IV = 0
  NV = 0
  PV = 0x306bb78 "\303\244\303\266\303\274\303\237kekse!\303\252"\0
  CUR = 16
  LEN = 24