http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=49560
--- Comment #1 from jphartmann at gmail dot com <jphartmann at gmail dot com> 2011-06-28 08:25:24 UTC --- This is how the string shows up in the .s: [/home/john/src/cmsh/390] more hlo.s .file "hlo.c" .section .rodata .LC0: .string "\310\226\246\204\250K@@\346\205\210\201\245\205@l\204@\201\231\207\244\224\205\225\243\242%" The % sign now represents the newline in the ascii string. The circumvention is to do a dry run with -Wall but without -fexec-charset, so this is not a priority as far as I am concerned.