Are you using 0.6? In the latest Julia versions (master / soon-to-be-released 0.7-alpha), the standard String type can hold arbitrary data, but gives it a UTF-8 like interpretation and display. On 0.6 and earlier some operations insisted on valid UTF-8 data in Strings, which indeed did lead to annoyances along the lines of what you’re describing. Those annoyances are gone on Julia master.