> > What's the difference between /[éê]/ and /ñÝ ? > > In that context there shouldn't be any difference If the source is in utf-8, then ruby 1.8 interpretes [éê] as a choice of 4 bytes: [195, 169, 195, 170] FóÏix is seen as: [70, 195, 170, 110, 105, 120] 195 & 170 get replaced with "e", hence Feenix.