Bug in Bash 2.05 and lower

[format]

Hello.

tech info:
--------------------------
Intel Pentium II 400 Mhz, 256 RAM
Linux Mandrake 7.0 kernel 2.2.14 and 8.0 kernel 2.2.19
GNU bash,version 2.05.0(1)-release (i686-pc-linux-gnu)
gcc-2.96
---------------------------
There is a strange thing in Bash.
Here are some outputs:

$echo -e '\x54'
T
$echo -e '\x544'  # in fact it is hex 44
D
$echo -e '\x545'  # hex 45
E
$echo -e '\x5455'
E5

So, left digit is  siply ignored. Maybe i am wrong but I think that
this is not right. This is unclear and may cause errors.
Looks like the mechanism for hex values is same as a mechanism for octal
values with several modifications.
There is also an error in Bash docs:

"\xnnn the character whose ASCII code is the
hexadecimal value nnn (one to three digits)"

Three digits? Too many for ASCII, i think.
-- 
Best regards,
Dmitry Mashourtsev                       mailto:format@chat.ru