hi all. ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i386-linux] >> puts 'hllo' hllo => nil >> puts 'hllo'[0, 2] h => nil >> puts 'hllo'[0, 3] h => nil >> require 'iconv' => true >> puts 'hllo'[0, 3] h => nil >> puts 'hllo'[0, 2] h => nil >> The character is probably 2 bytes long, so puts 'hllo'[1, 1]returns only a "pice" of the character. Is there a way to make this work? 'hllo'[0, 2] should return -> h and 'hllo'[0, 3] should return -> hl thanks