diff --git a/include/cyclone/runtime.h b/include/cyclone/runtime.h
index 3557ee6f..49648706 100644
--- a/include/cyclone/runtime.h
+++ b/include/cyclone/runtime.h
@@ -727,7 +727,6 @@ uint32_t Cyc_utf8_decode(uint32_t* state, uint32_t* codep, uint32_t byte);
 int Cyc_utf8_count_code_points(uint8_t* s);
 uint32_t Cyc_utf8_validate_stream(uint32_t *state, char *str, size_t len); 
 uint32_t Cyc_utf8_validate(char *str, size_t len);
-int uint32_num_bytes(uint32_t val);
 /**@}*/
 
 #endif                          /* CYCLONE_RUNTIME_H */
diff --git a/runtime.c b/runtime.c
index 323ba363..6178ca72 100644
--- a/runtime.c
+++ b/runtime.c
@@ -6586,13 +6586,13 @@ uint32_t Cyc_utf8_validate(char *str, size_t len) {
     return state;
 }
 
-int uint32_num_bytes(uint32_t x) {
-  // TODO: could compute log(val) / log(256)
-  if (x < 0x100) return 1;
-  if (x < 0x10000) return 2;
-  if (x < 0x1000000) return 3;
-  return 4;
-}
+//int uint32_num_bytes(uint32_t x) {
+//  // TODO: could compute log(val) / log(256)
+//  if (x < 0x100) return 1;
+//  if (x < 0x10000) return 2;
+//  if (x < 0x1000000) return 3;
+//  return 4;
+//}
 
 /**
  * This function takes one or more 32-bit chars and encodes them