I am trying to parse a string until the first occurrence of a word. This word sometimes has not latin characters in it and it has been causing me problems. An example: irb(main):001:0> require 'strscan' => true irb(main):002:0> testStr = "There is a special name, Andr, in it"=> "There is a special name, Andr\303\251, in it" irb(main):004:0> s = StringScanner.new(testStr) => #<StringScanner 0/38 @ "There..."> irb(main):005:0> s.skip_until /special/ => 18 irb(main):008:0> s.skip_until /Andr/ => nil Thanks for any help