h5dump doesn't display UTF-8 attributes correctly

[jeremyrgreen]

I store variable-length UTF8 strings in attributes. Sometimes this includes non-ASCII characters. When I examine the attributes using h5dump -A, the single character Ξ becomes the 18 characters \37777777716\37777777636. This is inconvenient, particularly because my terminal (and all modern ones) supports UTF8 and is perfectly capable of displaying Ξ.

It would be convenient if h5dump were able to output the UTF8 and let my terminal display it, either as default behaviour or as an option.

[derobins]

Which platform is this?

[jeremyrgreen]

Linux.