Guillermo: > Is this an enforced convention under Windows, then? My head's aching > after so much pulling at my hair, but I have the feeling that the > problem only arises when text travels through the dos console...
The console is commonly using Code Page 437 which is most compatible with old DOS programs since it can display line drawing characters. You can change the code page to UTF-8 with chcp 65001 Now, "type m.txt" with the original BOM-less file and it should be OK. You may also need to change the console font to one that is Unicode compatible like Lucida Console. Neil -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list