[Bug 1710981] Re: printf count utf-8 chars like arrow wrong

[H.-Dirk Schmitt]

The bug leads to ugly output on the console if the data contains such characters.
See the 3rd song in the following play queue listing:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Pos. Artist                      Title                        Dur.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
  1. Bryan Adams                 I'm Ready                    4:26
  2. Toto                        Mrs. Johnson                 3:48
  3. The Doobie Brothers         Long Train Runnin’         3:39
  4. Three Dog Night             One                          3:02
  5. Norman Greenbaum            Spirit in the Sky            3:51
--------------------------------------------------------------------


** Bug watch added: Debian Bug tracker #872295
   https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=872295

** Also affects: bash (Debian) via
   https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=872295
   Importance: Unknown
       Status: Unknown

** Also affects: coreutils (Debian) via
   https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=872295
   Importance: Unknown
       Status: Unknown

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1710981

Title:
  printf count utf-8 chars like arrow wrong

Status in bash package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in coreutils package in Ubuntu:
  New
Status in bash package in Debian:
  Unknown
Status in coreutils package in Debian:
  Unknown

Bug description:
  The printf command in bash (builtin) and corutils /usb/bin/printf have an error in counting the length of a string, if a non-ascii character is involved.
  Example is the arrow - type Alt+I.

  Try the following commands:
  printf -v r "%-2s X\n" '→' ; echo ${#r} # prints 4
  printf -v r "%-2s X\n" ' ' ; echo ${#r} # prints 5

  
  The coreutils version of printf has the same misbehaviour.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
  Package: coreutils 8.25-2ubuntu3~16.04
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.10.0-32.36~16.04.1-generic 4.10.17
  Uname: Linux 4.10.0-32-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.10
  Architecture: amd64
  CurrentDesktop: GNOME
  Date: Tue Aug 15 23:05:40 2017
  SourcePackage: coreutils
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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