Home / ubuntu / Questions / 601137
Accepted
kos
Asked: 2015-03-26 05:52:04 +0800 CST

How to print an octal value's corresponding UTF-8 character in bash?

  • 772

I expected printf %s '\<octal_character_value>' to do the trick, but it doesn't:

printf %s '\101'

Outputs:

\101
command-line

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Presumably you want %b. From help printf:

    In addition to the standard format specifications described in printf(1),
printf interprets:

  %b    expand backslash escape sequences in the corresponding argument

    And:

    $ printf "%b\n" '\101'
A

    I don't know if it works for Unicode characters in general.

    • 4

  2. You can use Awk:

    $ awk 'BEGIN {print "\107"}'
G

    Or the awk Velour library:

    $ velour -n 'print n_chr(+n_baseconv(107, 8, 10))'
G
    • 1

  3. It works with unicode as long as you type out the byte.

    $ gprintf '\353\200\200' | odview

0000000           8421611                                                
          ""  **  **                                                    
          353 200 200                                                    
           ?  80  80                                                    
          235 128 128                                                    
           eb  80  80                                                    
                  8421611                                                

0000003

    The %b operator isn't necessary (as long as your octals aren't \0NNN form, at least in the macOS 11.5 bash3 built-in, the macOS BSD-UNIX printf, and also gnu-printf 8.32.

    This character is U+B000 (n=45,056). The decomposed one is more verbose but works the same

    gprintf '\341\204\201\341\205\260\341\206\267' | odview

0000000        3783361761      2262937733             183                
          ᄁ  **  **   ᅰ  **  **   ᆷ  **  **                            
          341 204 201 341 205 260 341 206 267                            
           ?  84  81   ?  85   ?   ?  86   ?                            
          225 132 129 225 133 176 225 134 183                            
           e1  84  81  e1  85  b0  e1  86  b7                            
               -511605535     -2032029563             183
    • 0