* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file @ 2016-01-22 19:31 Richard Copley 2016-01-22 21:23 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Richard Copley @ 2016-01-22 19:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: 22436 From "emacs -Q", enter a ‘ in the scratch buffer (e.g., by typing "C-x 8 ["). Save or write the buffer. The minibuffer prompts "Select coding system (default chinese-iso-8bit): ". In GNU Emacs 25.0.50.1 (x86_64-w64-mingw32) of 2016-01-22 built on MACHINE Repository revision: f7dc6d8b5bb318e02a4016d93f8b34de0716f4dc Windowing system distributor 'Microsoft Corp.', version 10.0.10586 Configured using: 'configure --prefix /c/emacs/emacs-20160122-175552 --without-imagemagick --disable-dependency-tracking --enable-locallisppath=%emacs_dir%/../site-lisp 'CFLAGS=-Og -g -ggdb'' Configured features: XPM JPEG TIFF GIF PNG RSVG SOUND DBUS NOTIFY ACL GNUTLS LIBXML2 ZLIB TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS Important settings: value of $LANG: ENG locale-coding-system: cp1252 Major mode: Lisp Interaction Minor modes in effect: tooltip-mode: t global-eldoc-mode: t electric-indent-mode: t mouse-wheel-mode: t tool-bar-mode: t menu-bar-mode: t file-name-shadow-mode: t global-font-lock-mode: t font-lock-mode: t blink-cursor-mode: t auto-composition-mode: t auto-encryption-mode: t auto-compression-mode: t line-number-mode: t transient-mark-mode: t Recent messages: For information about GNU Emacs and the GNU system, type C-h C-a. Saving file c:/temp/xyzzy... Quit Load-path shadows: None found. Features: (shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message dired format-spec rfc822 mml mml-sec epg epg-config gnus-util mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util help-fns mail-prsvr mail-utils help-mode easymenu cl-loaddefs pcase cl-lib iso-transl time-date mule-util tooltip eldoc electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel dos-w32 ls-lisp disp-table w32-win w32-vars term/common-win tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list newcomment elisp-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cl-generic cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese charscript case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev minibuffer cl-preloaded nadvice loaddefs button faces cus-face macroexp files text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget hashtable-print-readable backquote w32notify dbusbind w32 multi-tty make-network-process emacs) Memory information: ((conses 16 91651 6242) (symbols 56 19640 0) (miscs 48 37 107) (strings 32 16064 5326) (string-bytes 1 434641) (vectors 16 15778) (vector-slots 8 819512 106167) (floats 8 162 20) (intervals 56 349 42) (buffers 976 12)) ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-22 19:31 bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file Richard Copley @ 2016-01-22 21:23 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-22 23:23 ` Richard Copley 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-22 21:23 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Richard Copley; +Cc: 22436 > From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> > Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:31:07 +0000 > > >From "emacs -Q", enter a ‘ in the scratch buffer (e.g., by typing "C-x > 8 ["). Save or write the buffer. The minibuffer prompts "Select coding > system (default chinese-iso-8bit): ". Why do you think that's wrong? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-22 21:23 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-22 23:23 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-23 5:56 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Richard Copley @ 2016-01-22 23:23 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eli Zaretskii; +Cc: 22436 On 22 January 2016 at 21:23, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote: >> From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> >> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:31:07 +0000 >> >> >From "emacs -Q", enter a ‘ in the scratch buffer (e.g., by typing "C-x >> 8 ["). Save or write the buffer. The minibuffer prompts "Select coding >> system (default chinese-iso-8bit): ". > > Why do you think that's wrong? Of course it's wrong. What do you mean? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-22 23:23 ` Richard Copley @ 2016-01-23 5:56 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 9:45 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-23 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 0 siblings, 2 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-23 5:56 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Richard Copley; +Cc: 22436 > From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> > Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 23:23:40 +0000 > Cc: 22436@debbugs.gnu.org > > On 22 January 2016 at 21:23, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote: > >> From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> > >> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:31:07 +0000 > >> > >> >From "emacs -Q", enter a ‘ in the scratch buffer (e.g., by typing "C-x > >> 8 ["). Save or write the buffer. The minibuffer prompts "Select coding > >> system (default chinese-iso-8bit): ". > > > > Why do you think that's wrong? > > Of course it's wrong. What do you mean? Wrong how? in what way? what did you expect to happen instead? Your locale's default encoding, cp1252, cannot encode this character, so Emacs asked you to provide an encoding that can, and offered chinese-iso-8bit as the default. An encoding can be considered "wrong" if it fails to encode a character. AFAICS, chinese-iso-8bit does succeed in encoding it, so the above definition of "wrong" doesn't fit. In addition, there should be a *Warning* buffer displayed where you have a long list of encodings Emacs knows about that can encode this character; chinese-iso-8bit is just one of them, but the text there tells you to select any one of them. Do you see that buffer displayed? Given all this information, please do tell why you think what Emacs did was wrong, and what did you think Emacs should have done instead. Thanks. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 5:56 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-23 9:45 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-23 11:31 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Richard Copley @ 2016-01-23 9:45 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eli Zaretskii; +Cc: 22436 On 23 January 2016 at 05:56, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote: >> From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> >> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 23:23:40 +0000 >> Cc: 22436@debbugs.gnu.org >> >> On 22 January 2016 at 21:23, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote: >> >> From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> >> >> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2016 19:31:07 +0000 >> >> >> >> >From "emacs -Q", enter a ‘ in the scratch buffer (e.g., by typing "C-x >> >> 8 ["). Save or write the buffer. The minibuffer prompts "Select coding >> >> system (default chinese-iso-8bit): ". >> > >> > Why do you think that's wrong? >> >> Of course it's wrong. What do you mean? > > Wrong how? in what way? what did you expect to happen instead? Wrong in the ordinary sense of the word, in that it is not right. It is however exactly what I expected. > Your locale's default encoding, cp1252, cannot encode this character, > so Emacs asked you to provide an encoding that can, and offered > chinese-iso-8bit as the default. Yes. > An encoding can be considered "wrong" if it fails to encode a > character. AFAICS, chinese-iso-8bit does succeed in encoding it, so > the above definition of "wrong" doesn't fit. It encodes the character to #xa1 #xae . When I open the file that is decoded as "¡®", without asking any questions. Isn't that what you saw? Are you going to tell me that's right too? > In addition, there should be a *Warning* buffer displayed where you > have a long list of encodings Emacs knows about that can encode this > character; chinese-iso-8bit is just one of them, but the text there > tells you to select any one of them. Do you see that buffer > displayed? Yes, but chinese-iso-8bit is not on the list. > Given all this information, please do tell why you think what Emacs > did was wrong, Do you seriously think it's the right thing to do? That's the last thing I expected. I don't know how to respond. > and what did you think Emacs should have done instead. I think Emacs should pick something less surprising and unhelpful, like utf-8. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 9:45 ` Richard Copley @ 2016-01-23 11:31 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 11:53 ` Richard Copley 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-23 11:31 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Richard Copley; +Cc: 22436 > From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> > Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2016 09:45:39 +0000 > Cc: 22436@debbugs.gnu.org > > > An encoding can be considered "wrong" if it fails to encode a > > character. AFAICS, chinese-iso-8bit does succeed in encoding it, so > > the above definition of "wrong" doesn't fit. > > It encodes the character to #xa1 #xae . When I open the file that is > decoded as "¡®", without asking any questions. Isn't that what you > saw? Are you going to tell me that's right too? Emacs never asks questions when decoding text, only when encoding it. When it visits a file, it guesses the encoding as best it can, and that's what you see. If you type "C-x RET c chinese-iso-8bit RET C-x C-f FILE RET", do you see that character correctly decoded and correctly displayed? > > In addition, there should be a *Warning* buffer displayed where you > > have a long list of encodings Emacs knows about that can encode this > > character; chinese-iso-8bit is just one of them, but the text there > > tells you to select any one of them. Do you see that buffer > > displayed? > > Yes, but chinese-iso-8bit is not on the list. It is: that's the first one in the list, gb2312. It's an alias for chinese-iso-8bit, which is the formal name. > > Given all this information, please do tell why you think what Emacs > > did was wrong, > > Do you seriously think it's the right thing to do? That's the last thing > I expected. I don't know how to respond. > > > and what did you think Emacs should have done instead. > > I think Emacs should pick something less surprising and unhelpful, > like utf-8. Unless it gets some hint from the locale or from customizations, Emacs does not prefer any encoding to any other encoding. GB2312 is a very reasonable choice in some locales, and might be what you want. How is Emacs to know, if your locale is US English? All it knows is that your default encoding cannot be used. What Emacs did here is produce a list of all the encodings that can encode that character, sorted them according what it knows about your preferences (which is nothing in this case), and then picked up the first encoding in the resulting list. And that's what you see. UTF-8 is also in the list, but it comes later. If you want Emacs to prefer UTF-8, you can have that. Just type M-x prefer-coding-system RET utf-8 RET That's it, Emacs will from now on use UTF-8 whenever it can without asking. If you repeat your recipe after setting that preference, it will silently encode the buffer/region with UTF-8, no questions asked. You can have this customization in your ~/.emacs file, of course, if you want it permanent. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 11:31 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-23 11:53 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-23 13:09 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Richard Copley @ 2016-01-23 11:53 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eli Zaretskii; +Cc: 22436 Thanks for explaining that. I imagined Emacs would use a heuristic based on the contents of the file. If there were a fallback ordering that preferred utf-8 or some other universally applicable coding system it would be easier for most users and less confusing for beginners. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 11:53 ` Richard Copley @ 2016-01-23 13:09 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-23 13:09 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Richard Copley; +Cc: 22436 > From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> > Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2016 11:53:13 +0000 > Cc: 22436@debbugs.gnu.org > > Thanks for explaining that. I imagined Emacs would use a > heuristic based on the contents of the file. There is indeed a heuristic, but it's not very smart, and only works well when the encoding is blatantly clear. This is an area where improvements are welcome. In any case, when presented with a buffer that includes a single non-ASCII character that can be encoded by a dozen of possible encodings, it's hard to be too smart based on the contents alone. > If there were a fallback ordering that preferred utf-8 or some > other universally applicable coding system it would be easier > for most users and less confusing for beginners. Such a fallback does exist, see coding-system-priority-list. What "M-x prefer-coding-system RET" does is manipulate the priorities so that the encoding you typed is preferred. Do we close this report, or is there something else to do about it? Thanks. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 5:56 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 9:45 ` Richard Copley @ 2016-01-23 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2016-01-23 13:46 ` Eli Zaretskii 1 sibling, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2016-01-23 13:12 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eli Zaretskii; +Cc: Richard Copley, 22436 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes: > Your locale's default encoding, cp1252, cannot encode this character, > so Emacs asked you to provide an encoding that can, and offered > chinese-iso-8bit as the default. While correct, it is a slightly less than helpful default. Most people deal (at most) with two charsets: One local, and if not, then Unicode. (Which would be utf8 on most systems, and possibly ucs16 on Windows, I dunno.) So `chinese-iso-8bit' is a surprising default. Could the default be improved upon? -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2016-01-23 13:46 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 13:55 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-23 13:46 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen; +Cc: rcopley, 22436 > From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> > Cc: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com>, 22436@debbugs.gnu.org > Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2016 14:12:20 +0100 > > Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes: > > > Your locale's default encoding, cp1252, cannot encode this character, > > so Emacs asked you to provide an encoding that can, and offered > > chinese-iso-8bit as the default. > > While correct, it is a slightly less than helpful default. It's not a default, it's just the first member of a list sorted according to some comparison function. > Most people deal (at most) with two charsets: One local, and if not, > then Unicode. That's only correct if the encoded text is going to be used on the same platform. This email message is an excellent example where this logic is simply false, because you and I live in different locales, and "Unicode" means different things to us. (Anyway, when you say "most people", did you consider how many people in the world consider chinese-iso-8bit a very good first choice? ;-) > Which would be utf8 on most systems, and possibly ucs16 on Windows, > I dunno. Using UTF-16 on Windows would be disastrous: almost no program, certainly not those which are ports of GNU software, can do anything useful with such an encoding. Emacs is the only exception I know of. > So `chinese-iso-8bit' is a surprising default. It's not a default. > Could the default be improved upon? We can sort the list differently. But if all we want is to always get UTF-8 at the head, there's a much easier way, see my other message where I mentioned prefer-coding-system. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 13:46 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-23 13:55 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2016-01-23 14:39 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2016-01-23 13:55 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eli Zaretskii; +Cc: rcopley, 22436 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes: > (Anyway, when you say "most people", did you consider how many people > in the world consider chinese-iso-8bit a very good first choice? ;-) :-) >> Which would be utf8 on most systems, and possibly ucs16 on Windows, >> I dunno. > > Using UTF-16 on Windows would be disastrous: almost no program, > certainly not those which are ports of GNU software, can do anything > useful with such an encoding. Emacs is the only exception I know of. Right. I thought I had read somewhere that Windows was UTF-16-ey, but I know nothing about Windows... >> So `chinese-iso-8bit' is a surprising default. > > It's not a default. > >> Could the default be improved upon? > > We can sort the list differently. But if all we want is to always get > UTF-8 at the head, there's a much easier way, see my other message > where I mentioned prefer-coding-system. I guess I'm just saying that I think the least surprising default coding system here would be utf-8. So Emacs should offer that as the first option unless the user has said otherwise. That is, Emacs should say utf-8 unless the user has called `prefer-coding-system' with something else. -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 13:55 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 2016-01-23 14:39 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-25 22:38 ` Richard Copley 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-23 14:39 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen; +Cc: rcopley, 22436 > From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> > Cc: rcopley@gmail.com, 22436@debbugs.gnu.org > Date: Sat, 23 Jan 2016 14:55:50 +0100 > > >> Could the default be improved upon? > > > > We can sort the list differently. But if all we want is to always get > > UTF-8 at the head, there's a much easier way, see my other message > > where I mentioned prefer-coding-system. > > I guess I'm just saying that I think the least surprising default coding > system here would be utf-8. For you, maybe. What about all those Chinese out there? What if I'm writing an email to someone in China? Etc., etc. > That is, Emacs should say utf-8 unless the user has called > `prefer-coding-system' with something else. Most people who care about that already have their locales use UTF-8. So the problem largely doesn't exist. It's not an accident that this was reported by a Windows user. Anyway, this stuff worked for years, why should we suddenly change? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-23 14:39 ` Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-25 22:38 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-26 15:39 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 1 reply; 14+ messages in thread From: Richard Copley @ 2016-01-25 22:38 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Eli Zaretskii; +Cc: 22436, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen >> > We can sort the list differently. But if all we want is to always get >> > UTF-8 at the head, there's a much easier way, see my other message >> > where I mentioned prefer-coding-system. >> >> I guess I'm just saying that I think the least surprising default coding >> system here would be utf-8. > > For you, maybe. What about all those Chinese out there? What if I'm > writing an email to someone in China? Etc., etc. What about them, and everybody else? UTF-8 is good enough for all of us. Eli, you asked earlier if this report should be closed. I guess so! As you've explained, it's not a bug. I don't like the default behaviour, but it's pretty far down the list of things that I don't like about "emacs -Q". ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
* bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file 2016-01-25 22:38 ` Richard Copley @ 2016-01-26 15:39 ` Eli Zaretskii 0 siblings, 0 replies; 14+ messages in thread From: Eli Zaretskii @ 2016-01-26 15:39 UTC (permalink / raw) To: Richard Copley; +Cc: 22436-done, larsi > From: Richard Copley <rcopley@gmail.com> > Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2016 22:38:15 +0000 > Cc: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>, 22436@debbugs.gnu.org > > >> > We can sort the list differently. But if all we want is to always get > >> > UTF-8 at the head, there's a much easier way, see my other message > >> > where I mentioned prefer-coding-system. > >> > >> I guess I'm just saying that I think the least surprising default coding > >> system here would be utf-8. > > > > For you, maybe. What about all those Chinese out there? What if I'm > > writing an email to someone in China? Etc., etc. > > What about them, and everybody else? UTF-8 is good enough > for all of us. Not in the Far East, I'm afraid. > Eli, you asked earlier if this report should be closed. I guess so! > As you've explained, it's not a bug. I don't like the default > behaviour, but it's pretty far down the list of things that I don't > like about "emacs -Q". OK, closing. Thanks for pointing that out. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 14+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2016-01-26 15:39 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 14+ messages (download: mbox.gz follow: Atom feed -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2016-01-22 19:31 bug#22436: read-coding-system uses wrong default when called from write-file Richard Copley 2016-01-22 21:23 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-22 23:23 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-23 5:56 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 9:45 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-23 11:31 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 11:53 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-23 13:09 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 13:12 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2016-01-23 13:46 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-23 13:55 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen 2016-01-23 14:39 ` Eli Zaretskii 2016-01-25 22:38 ` Richard Copley 2016-01-26 15:39 ` Eli Zaretskii
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