> That came back to the bash prompt without showing me anything The example wasn't given as a Bash command but as a SQLite shell prompt. However, it works here on 10.15.7 with the stock `sqlite3` shell both ways: ``` shell $ sqlite3 SQLite version 3.28.0 2019-04-15 14:49:49 Enter ".help" for usage hints. Connected to a transient in-memory database. Use ".open FILENAME" to reopen on a persistent database. sqlite> SELECT x'c3a1', hex('á'); á|C3A1 sqlite> ^D $ echo "SELECT x'c3a1', hex('á');" | sqlite3 á|C3A1 ``` It also works fine with SQLite 3.34.0 from Homebrew. So, you've apparently got something weird going on there. Nonstandard shell? Third-party SQLite binaries?