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From: | Mark Roberts |
Subject: | bug#29606: Command 'fold' dangerous with utf-8 input |
Date: | Fri, 8 Dec 2017 13:04:20 +0100 (CET) |
User-agent: | Alpine 2.02 (DEB 1266 2009-07-14) |
Dear Assaf,the reason for the unexpected behavior of 'fold', namely that specifying --bytes doesn't make it count bytes, is evident after a look at the source code.
When --bytes is not specified, the program treats '\b', '\r' and '\t' specially. It assumes a tab width of eight (compile-time #define) and attempts to keep track of what the output will look like.
This is absolutely not what I expected. But of course, when the program was first written, the words byte and character meant the same thing for printable characters. Printable bytes.
I will attempt to suggest an improved text for the man-page so that others will not be surprised.
Mark
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