Integer ASCII value to character in BASH using printf

Question

One line

printf "\x$(printf %x 65)"

Two lines

set $(printf %x 65)
printf "\x$1"

Here is one if you do not mind using awk

awk 'BEGIN{printf "%c", 65}'

This works (with the value in octal):

$ printf '%b' '\101'
A

even for (some: don't go over 7) sequences:

$ printf '%b' '\'{101..107}
ABCDEFG

A general construct that allows (decimal) values in any range is:

$ printf '%b' $(printf '\\%03o' {65..122})
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

Or you could use the hex values of the characters:

$ printf '%b' $(printf '\\x%x' {65..122})
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_`abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

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You also could get the character back with xxd (use hexadecimal values):

$ echo "41" | xxd -p -r
A

That is, one action is the reverse of the other:

$ printf "%x" "'A" | xxd -p -r
A

And also works with several hex values at once:

$ echo "41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4a" | xxd -p -r
ABCDEFGHIJ

or sequences (printf is used here to get hex values):

$ printf '%x' {65..90} | xxd -r -p 
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

---

Or even use awk:

$ echo 65 | awk '{printf("%c",$1)}'
A

even for sequences:

$ seq 65 90 | awk '{printf("%c",$1)}'
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

For your second question, it seems the leading-quote syntax (\'A) is specific to printf:

If the leading character is a single-quote or double-quote, the value shall be the numeric value in the underlying codeset of the character following the single-quote or double-quote.

From https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/printf.html

One option is to directly input the character you're interested in using hex or octal notation:

printf "\x41\n"
printf "\101\n"

For this kind of conversion, I use perl:

perl -e 'printf "%c\n", 65;'