Encode UF8 from Perl to PostgreSQL

#Perl has two UTF-8 encodings, utf8 which is Perl's liberal version and UTF-8 which is
#a strict #interpretation, aka utf-8-strict. The liberal version allows for encoded
#characters outside the UTF-8 character set, however you can run into problems when
#interoperating with #applications that expect utf-8-strict, such as PostgreSQL.
#Perl function  to #strictify utf8 to UTF-8 using the Encode core module:
#http://www.dev411.com/blog/2006/09/29/perl-strictify-utf8-to-UTF-8

use Encode;

sub strictify_utf8 {
    my $data = shift;
    if (Encode::is_utf8($data) && !Encode::is_utf8($data,1)) {
        Encode::_utf8_off($data);
        Encode::from_to($data, 'utf8', 'UTF-8');
        Encode::_utf8_on($data);
    }
    return $data;
}