hi all.

ruby 1.8.5 (2006-08-25) [i386-linux]

 >> puts 'hällo'
hällo
=> nil
 >> puts 'hällo'[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]eturns 
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