# Individual char values in a Unicode string

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/individual-char-values-in-a-unicode-string/67323>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [September 2, 2006, 6:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/individual-char-values-in-a-unicode-string/67323 "2006-09-02T06:47:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tbobker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@tbobker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tbobker)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2006, 6:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/individual-char-values-in-a-unicode-string/67323/1 "2006-09-02T06:47:56Z")

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I’m trying to figure out how to use [] String or jconv or something  
to figure out the actual code-point values in a Unicode/UTF-8  
string. For example, how can I write f such that

f(‘tö中’) ==\> [0x74, 0xf6, 0x4e2d]

(hex just for clarity of course, I want numbers).

-Tim

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**Author:** ![tbobker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@tbobker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tbobker)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2006, 7:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/individual-char-values-in-a-unicode-string/67323/2 "2006-09-02T07:13:56Z")

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Tim B. wrote:

> I’m trying to figure out how to use [] String or jconv or something  
> to figure out the actual code-point values in a Unicode/UTF-8  
> string. For example, how can I write f such that
> 
> f(‘tö中’) ==\> [0x74, 0xf6, 0x4e2d]
> 
> (hex just for clarity of course, I want numbers).

Hex numbers are numbers. 🙂

To answer your question, you can extract bytes from a string:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

s = “this is a test”

i = 0  
while (i \< s.size)  
puts s[i] # emits numbers, not characters  
i += 1  
end

Bu I don’t think Ruby recognizes characters, Unicode or otherwise. So it  
may  
not be able to interpret a mixture of Unicode and UTF/8 without explicit  
code from the programmer.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![tbobker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@tbobker](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/tbobker)\
**Post date:** [September 2, 2006, 7:43am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/individual-char-values-in-a-unicode-string/67323/3 "2006-09-02T07:43:58Z")

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Tim B. wrote:

> 

‘tö中’.unpack(“U\*”) =\> [116, 246, 20013]

Regards,

Dan