This seems to depend on $ENV{LANG}. On a Redhat 9 box, with LANG set to en_CA.UTF-8, I get the extra UTF-8 characters. Setting LANG to en_US works as you'd want, though.

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In reply to Re: problems packing 8 bit data by Willard B. Trophy
in thread problems packing 8 bit data by Anonymous Monk

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