Using "read -N" on text containing multi-byte characters produces incorrect result.
On Debian amd64 with the latest code from git: $ locale charmap UTF-8 $ printf '\ue9VWXYZ' | ./bash -c 'IFS= read -rN4 a; printf %s "$a"' | hd 00000000 c3 58 a9 56 57 |.X.VW| 00000005 (expected c3 a9 56 57 58) $ ./bash --version GNU bash, version 4.4.12(6)-maint (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu) [...] It seems to be a regression (since 4.3). It was working OK with 4.2 -- Stephane
