title: How well is Node.js' support for Unicode?
body: <p>According to its <a href="http://ecma-international.org/ecma-262/5.1/#sec-6" rel="noreferrer">language specification</a> JavaScript has some problems with Unicode (if I understand it correctly), as text is always handled as one character consisting of 16 bits internally.</p>
  
  <p><em>JavaScript: The Good Parts</em> speaks out in a similar way.</p>
  
  <p>When you search Google for V8's support of UTF-8, you get contradictory statements.</p>
  
  <p>So: What is the state of Unicode support in Node.js (0.10.26 was the current version when this question was asked)? Does it handle UTF-8 will all possible codepoints correctly, or doesn't it?</p>
  
  <p>If not: What are possible workarounds?</p>