But when I look for "should be" in my test output file, it is many lines away from the failure message.
That's autoloading for you. Can you trace LOAD* COMPILE-FILE* and/or COMPILE-FILE LOAD and check that indeed :EXTERNAL-FORMAT :UTF-8 is used? If it isn't, then it's a bug in our code or test (Note: considering the portable nature of the code, and the fact that it works for me, that is unlikely.) If it is, then it's time to file a bug against ABCL. (Note: considering that I already had to disable most of the test for ABCL, that is very likely.) rlwrap abcl (load "test/script-support.lisp") (da) (la) (trace load compile-file load* compile-file*) (load "test/test-encodings.script") —♯ƒ • François-René ÐVB Rideau •Reflection&Cybernethics• http://fare.tunes.org No man would listen to you talk if he didn't know it was his turn next. — Edgar Watson Howe