"Bart Schaefer" wrote:
> The bug is demonstrated by:
> 
> a='å'				# That's meta-a, or 228 decimal
> (( #a == #\å )) || echo oops

Seems to be 229, here.

Here's a function that allows you to enter a numeric argument to get a
character with a given number, sort of like quoted insert.  Have I missed
something simpler (i.e. can you really not process a character code in
decimal)?


# Insert the ASCII character given by the numeric argument (0 -- 255)

typeset -i 16 x
x=${NUMERIC:-0}

if (( x < 0 || x > 255 )); then
  return 1
else
  eval LBUFFER=\$LBUFFER\$\'\\x${x##???}\'
fi


> The problem is that #a is unsigned but #\a is signed, so for values above
> 127 decimal the #\a form returns a negative number.

(except when it isn't, of course).  The problem looks like it's in
getkeystring(), which converts a char to an int by direct casting instead
of taking the usual care with STOUC().   I can't imagine getkeystring() has
to be different from the rest of the shell in this respect.

--- Src/utils.c.stouc	Sun Sep 26 15:32:08 1999
+++ Src/utils.c	Sun Sep 26 16:20:07 1999
@@ -3407,7 +3407,7 @@
 	    t++;
 	}
 	if (fromwhere == 6 && t != tmp) {
-	    *misc = (int) tmp[0];
+	    *misc = STOUC(tmp[0]);
 	    return s + 1;
 	}
     }

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@ibmth.df.unipi.it>       Tel: +39 050 844536
WWW:  http://www.ifh.de/~pws/
Dipartimento di Fisica, Via Buonarroti 2, 56127 Pisa, Italy