It looks like seq for integers bigger than 2^64 sometimes generate wrong results. There are few examples of wrong output I have found: $ seq 18446744073709551617 inf | head -3 18446744073709551616 18446744073709551617 18446744073709551618 $  seq 10000000000000000000000000000 inf | head -3 9999999999999999999731564544 9999999999999999999731564545 9999999999999999999731564546 $  seq -1000000000000000000000000 0 | head -3 -1000000000000000000000000 -1000000000000000000000000 -1000000000000000000000000 It is similar to bug #75994 which reports the same issue but only for "-w" option.