But then, based on one of your replies, I gather that the entire file is really utf-16, and that some of the 16-bit characters happen to represent ascii values in the unicode table (ie. their high bytes are null). Fine.

Yes, you are correct (I think) - the whole file is utf16, but some of the chars have null high bytes (the 'ascii' like values).

I also have access to 5.8 (now), and am going to try to not make my life so hard by ignoring the fact that my data is utf-16LE encoded (other than the IO layers) - as demonstrated by your code snippet. Will reply to this thread if everything works out.

I'm sorry not to be more helpful

Wrong! You have clarified several things, and given me a direction - including a snippet - to go on.

And for that: more and better karma to you. Thank you kindly,

bm