From: Eric Hodel <drbrain@...7.net>
Date: 2007-10-15T05:20:19+09:00
Subject: Re: question about some octal formatted output?

On Oct 14, 2007, at 11:17 , 7stud -- wrote:
> eacute = ""
> eacute << 0xC3 << 0xA9   #eacute<< 195 << 169 ; or é
>
> p eacute
>
> --output:---
> "\303\251"
>
> That ouput is in octal--although there is no leading 0.
>
> 1) Where does that format come from, i.e. no leading 0?
> 2) Why is the output in octal and not hex?

Its at least as old as C.  You'll probably have to ask some really  
old timers for the answer.

$ cat octal.c
#include <stdio.h>

void main() { printf("\303\251\n"); }
$ gcc octal.c
octal.c: In function 'main':
octal.c:3: warning: return type of 'main' is not 'int'
$ ./a.out
é

> I looked up String#<< and it says it converts any Fixnum between 0-255
> to a character.
>
> 3) Using what character set?

ASCII.  Its your terminal that controls how it gets displayed.  My  
terminal is set to UTF-8.

--
Poor workers blame their tools. Good workers build better tools. The
best workers get their tools to do the work for them. -- Syndicate Wars