Node.js tries to be helpful in defaulting file writes to UTF-8, but defaults file reads to returning a raw byte buffer [0]. So you have to either remember to tr

Node.js tries to be helpful in defaulting file writes to UTF-8, but defaults file reads to returning a raw byte buffer [0]. So you have to either remember to treat the two operations differently, or, like in Python, manually specify the encoding for both. [0] I seem to recall that it used to default to the locale's preferred encoding, but I could have my wires crossed with other languages' standard libraries there.