@frostschutz: Huh. I can confirm this with a bb built against its own i18n code (as Kobo's libc has broken locales).
(Haven't checked how Kobo's bb is built, as the repos still haven't been updated, and they don't build the bbconfig applet).
I'll check with a bb built against libc, for shit'n giggles, since I do fix the locales on my devices...
(But it does work with ZSH + libc + fixed locales; it counts codepoints).
Code:
┌─(ROOT@dahlia:pts/0)──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────(~)─┐
└─(0.06:22%:20:11:91%:#)── BLAH="héhé" && echo ${#BLAH} && echo ${BLAH:2} && echo ${BLAH:3} ──(Wed, Jul 01)─┘
4
hé
é