R help - May 2006 - demo() output looks garbled in default pager (less and most)

Dear Rexperts,

I have recently build R-2.3.0 from source on a Linux system and have 
encountered the following problem (perhaps not exactly a problem, but a 
minor display flaw):

 > demo()
+------------here is how the output looks in less------------+
Demos in package
<E2><80><98>base<E2><80><99>:

is.things               Explore some properties of R objects and
                         is.FOO() functions. Not for newbies!
recursion               Using recursion for adaptive integration
scoping                 An illustration of lexical scoping.

Demos in package
<E2><80><98>graphics<E2><80><99>:

Hershey                 Tables of the characters in the Hershey vector
                         fonts
Japanese                Tables of the Japanese characters in the
                         Hershey vector fonts
graphics                A show of some of R's graphics capabilities
image                   The image-like graphics builtins of R
persp                   Extended persp() examples
plotmath                Examples of the use of mathematics annotation

Demos in package
<E2><80><98>stats<E2><80><99>:

glm.vr                  Some glm() examples from V&R with several
                         predictors
lm.glm                  Some linear and generalized linear modelling
<further output clipped>
+------------------------------------------------------------+

+------------------here how it looks in most-----------------+
0x00000000: 44656D6F 7320696E 20706163 6B616765     Demos in package
0x00000010: 20E28098 62617365 E280993A 0A0A6973      ?..base?..:..is
0x00000020: 2E746869 6E677320 20202020 20202020     .things
0x00000030: 20202020 20204578 706C6F72 6520736F           Explore so
0x00000040: 6D652070 726F7065 72746965 73206F66     me properties of
0x00000050: 2052206F 626A6563 74732061 6E640A20      R objects and.
0x00000060: 20202020 20202020 20202020 20202020
0x00000070: 20202020 20202069 732E464F 4F282920            is.FOO()
0x00000080: 66756E63 74696F6E 732E204E 6F742066     functions. Not f
0x00000090: 6F72206E 65776269 6573210A 72656375     or newbies!.recu
0x000000A0: 7273696F 6E202020 20202020 20202020     rsion
0x000000B0: 20202020 5573696E 67207265 63757273         Using recurs
0x000000C0: 696F6E20 666F7220 61646170 74697665     ion for adaptive
0x000000D0: 20696E74 65677261 74696F6E 0A73636F      integration.sco
0x000000E0: 70696E67 20202020 20202020 20202020     ping
0x000000F0: 20202020 20416E20 696C6C75 73747261          An illustra
0x00000100: 74696F6E 206F6620 6C657869 63616C20     tion of lexical
0x00000110: 73636F70 696E672E 0A0A4465 6D6F7320     scoping...Demos
0x00000120: 696E2070 61636B61 676520E2 80986772     in package ?..gr
0x00000130: 61706869 6373E280 993A0A0A 48657273     aphics?..:..Hers
0x00000140: 68657920 20202020 20202020 20202020     hey
0x00000150: 20202020 5461626C 6573206F 66207468         Tables of th
-- MOST: *stdin*                                                    (1,1) 0%
Press `Q' to quit, `H' for help, and SPACE to scroll.
+------------------------------------------------------------+

The other pageable output tried so far (e.g. library() or ?demo) appears 
OK in either less and in most.

I wonder if I should file a bug about this issue or to seek the solution 
in a local system misconfiguration.

Thank you for any helpful input!

Regards,
Ivailo
-- 
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge..."
                                                   --  Charles Darwin

You are almost certainly using a UTF-8 locale and have the character set 
for less and/or your terminal set incorrectly.  This works exactly as 
intended on a properly configured Linux system in single-byte and UTF-8 
locales.

This would be quite inappropriate as a bug report on R.

On Wed, 3 May 2006, Ivailo Stoyanov wrote:
> Dear Rexperts,
>
> I have recently build R-2.3.0 from source on a Linux system and have
> encountered the following problem (perhaps not exactly a problem, but a
> minor display flaw):
>
> > demo()
> +------------here is how the output looks in less------------+
> Demos in package
<E2><80><98>base<E2><80><99>:
Those are UTF-8 byte sequences for left- and right- single quotes.

[...]

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595