Here is simple input data: 
Year*JEDocSrcP_USERE_DATE  P_DATE  CurLine
2011617 GJ448 Bruce12/20/1101/01/11USD1500
2011617 GJ349áBruce12/20/1101/01/11USD1500
2011617 GJ350 Bruce12/20/1101/01/11USD1500
2011617 GJ351 Bruce12/20/1101/01/11USD1500

[download]
The output looks like this: 
First 20:  Year*JEDocSrcP_
First 20:  2011617 GJ448 Bruce1
First 20:  2011617 GJ349áBruce
First 20:  2011617 GJ350 Bruce1
First 20:  2011617 GJ351 Bruce1

[download]
Note that the asterisk * is really the UTF-8 heart symbol ♥. It wasn't displaying correctly here so I just put an asterisk there. I will work on the hex dump for you.

but I think it is counting octets

In reply to Re^2: Read and write UTF-8 by Norah
in thread Read and write UTF-8 by Norah

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