unset LC_ALL LC_CTYPE=en_US.ISO8859-1 export LC_CTYPE e= for i in 0 1 2 3; do for j in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do for k in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7; do case $i$j$k in 000) continue ;; esac e="$e\\$i$j$k" done done done ee=`printf "$e"` [ "${#ee}" = 255 ] || echo length bad # Start a new shell so the locale change is picked up. [ "$(${SH} -c "printf %s \$'$e'")" = "$ee" ]