Returns an array of the bytes in +self+: 'hello'.bytes # => [104, 101, 108, 108, 111] 'Привет'.bytes # => [208, 159, 209, 128, 208, 184, 208, 178, 208, 181, 209, 130] 'こんにちは'.bytes # => [227, 129, 147, 227, 130, 147, 227, 129, 171, 227, 129, 161, 227, 129, 175] Related: see {Converting to Non-String}[rdoc-ref:String@Converting+to+Non--5CString].