I have a bit of an issue with Strings between MacRuby and Ruby. I have a socket that is feeding me data and I am running a check on watching for changes in the byte structure. The script works in ruby and I can get both the "\030" and the "\220" values to test true Here is the snippet. if results == "\030" puts "got $2" # @nc.postNotificationName("coins_taken_complete", object:self) elsif results == "\220" puts "got $1" # @nc.postNotificationName("coins_taken_complete", object:self) end When I get it into the MacRuby environment the "\030" is picked up by the code but the "\220" is not picked up at all. I have also tried this with the hex values "\x18" and "\x90" and I get the same result, the "\x18" is picked up and the "\x90" is not. I can see in the console that "\x90" is the value being passed to this test when building with xcode and as I mentioned when I build the script in ruby with textmate everything functions normally. So I am wondering two things: Is this a bug? If I have to do a work around is there any way to tell what encodings are being seen by the Macruby loop so I can match them Any help would be greatly appreciated Thanks, Shaun