Sorry bugging you for this simple command. ls command displays question marks for the local characters (ones not included in 8859-1 space) in filenames. ie. [root at server aa]# touch çarp [root at server aa]# ls ??arp [root at server aa]# ls -b #for octal escapes \303\247arp [root at server aa]# However, ls|less, ls|more or vi <directory name> all display filename correctly. Also, the <tab> completes such filenames in the correct way. Even, logsave command for the ls output prints the right characters. So, I assume the filesystem keeps the filenames in UTF-8 encoding, but somehow ls can not show them properly. Any workaround or a replacement for ls? BTW The system is Centos 5.1 and locale shows the encoding as UTF-8. Thank you.