diff --git a/comphelper/source/misc/syntaxhighlight.cxx b/comphelper/source/misc/syntaxhighlight.cxx
index d0546bbf2788..76b72b148830 100644
--- a/comphelper/source/misc/syntaxhighlight.cxx
+++ b/comphelper/source/misc/syntaxhighlight.cxx
@@ -488,7 +488,7 @@ bool SyntaxHighlighter::Tokenizer::getNextToken( const sal_Unicode*& pos, /*out*
 
                 // Read all numbers
                 while( testCharFlags( *pos, CHAR_IN_OCT_NUMBER ) )
-                    c = *pos++;
+                    ++pos;
             }
             // Hexadecimal?
             else if( *pos == 'h' || *pos == 'H' )