> if you iterate over a Go string using "range", you get 32-bit "runes" It's often easier to use that for-loop with a break to look at the first character of s

> if you iterate over a Go string using "range", you get 32-bit "runes" It's often easier to use that for-loop with a break to look at the first character of such a string, as in... package main import "fmt" func main(){ str:= "我是一个人" for _, r:= range str { fmt.Printf("%c\n", r) break } } Doing a str[0] prints the first utf8 byte of the string ("æ") instead of the whole character. The name of the official function is difficult to remember, and you have to put an import at the top... import "unicode/utf8" ... r, _:= utf8.DecodeRuneInString(str)