Okay, it makes somewhat more sense now after reading that thread. But technically, why does show "ü" not handle Unicode? Isn't the internal representation of [Char] actually still Unicode, as per [1]http://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.6.0.1/docs/Data-Char.html Thanks! k On Wed, Mar 5, 2014, at 01:46 PM, Clark Gaebel wrote: "Show" is for debug output. It's not a generic "to_string". See this thread [1] from last week for more info. - Clark [1] [2]https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/haskell-cafe/32EeI96b1VQ On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 4:43 PM, <[3]k@ioctl.it> wrote: Hello! I'm sure this has been answered many times before, but I can't find an explanation for this behavior anywhere. The question I have is a general one regarding 'show'. Why does main = do putStrLn "ü" ➜ ~ runhaskell test.hs ü and: main = do putStrLn $ show "ü" ➜ ~ runhaskell test.hs "\252" Thank you all for an enlightening answer already! Best, k _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list [4]Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org [5]http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe -- Clark. Key ID : 0x78099922 Fingerprint: B292 493C 51AE F3AB D016 DD04 E5E3 C36F 5534 F907 References 1. http://hackage.haskell.org/package/base-4.6.0.1/docs/Data-Char.html 2. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/haskell-cafe/32EeI96b1VQ 3. mailto:k@ioctl.it 4. mailto:Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org 5. http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe