My code receives XML data from a Web Service API call that is in UTF8 encoding. This winds up in a string. return_data = NSURLConnection.sendSynchronousRequest(@request, returningResponse: response, error: error) str = NSString.alloc.initWithData(return_data, encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding) puts "******* response encoding it #{str.encoding}" The result of the puts above is 'MACINTOSH'. I suspect the encoding of the string is not UTF-8, because when I try to parse the XML using REXML, I get: RegexpError: too short multibyte code This occurs way in REXML: /Library/Frameworks/MacRuby.framework/Versions/0.5/usr/lib/ruby/1.9.0/rexml/text.rb:132:in `check:' In any case, my questions are: 1) If anyone has run across this what did you do? 2) Why might the encoding be MACINTOSH and not UTF-8, as specified in the initWithData method call? 3) Suggestions? Thanks, Steve