Will this - Initial Unicode support - the Char type is now 31 bit cause me a problem? I am sending protocol elements via a socket. I represent these as [Word8]. I had assumed that when I want to send something I do hPutStr (map (ord .word8ToInt) protocolElement) essentially doing a type coercion. But this looks like bits actually get changed into something the respondent won't recognise. Dominic. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21st century air travel http://www.britishairways.com