diff --git a/CHANGES.current b/CHANGES.current
index 47ed53d95..993a346d8 100644
--- a/CHANGES.current
+++ b/CHANGES.current
@@ -1,6 +1,9 @@
 Version 1.3.34 (in progress)
 ============================
 
+12/16/2007: wsfulton
+	    [Perl] Backed out #1798728 - numbers can be passed to functions taking char *
+
 12/16/2007: wsfulton
 	    Fix #1832613 - Templates and some typedefs involving pointers or function pointers
 
diff --git a/Lib/perl5/perlstrings.swg b/Lib/perl5/perlstrings.swg
index 4388deb43..2083f0bba 100644
--- a/Lib/perl5/perlstrings.swg
+++ b/Lib/perl5/perlstrings.swg
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@
 SWIGINTERN int
 SWIG_AsCharPtrAndSize(SV *obj, char** cptr, size_t* psize, int *alloc)
 {
-  if (SvOK(obj)) {
+  if (SvPOK(obj)) {
     STRLEN len = 0;
     char *cstr = SvPV(obj, len); 
     size_t size = len + 1;