Re: evaluating numbers

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Jean-Christophe Helary <jean.christophe.helary@traduction-libre.org>
> Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2019 09:15:30 +0900
> 
> >  M-: (char-after) RET
> 
> But that doesn't work for non-ascii characters. Hence my previous question about the relative importance of "e" vs "é" for ex.

Yes, and we have just made a full circle.  Users who want this to work
for any character should customize
eval-expression-print-maximum-character to a suitable value.  The
current default is a compromise, which is still tremendously useful
because at least IME examining ASCII characters is a very frequent use
case.  AFAIR we had a long discussion back when this option was
introduced and its default set to 127, and this is the compromise we
have reached.  If you don't like the default, you can have a different
value that satisfies you.  But I see no reason to continue questioning
the default any further.

> If we have a function like (char-after) that is defined as "Return(ing) character in current buffer at position POS." then it should do that for all the characters defined in the emacs supported character set, shouldn't it?

Characters are just integers in Emacs.

> I'm fine with integers evaluation displaying only number values by the way. But maybe (char-after) and similar functions should use a different value for eval-expression-print-maximum-character.

Feel free to file a feature-request bug report about this.

> Is there a general policy to just mention/define variables and not give default values in the manual ?

No.