>>>>> On Sun, 07 May 2006 23:28:09 -0400
>>>>> "SM" == Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> wrote:
SM> 
>>>> After I switched to utf-8 as my basic environment encoding (on Linux)
>>>> I got need of converting some texts sometimes back to koi8-r.  Typical
>>>> task here is to convert outgoing mail to persons and newsgroups
>>>> hierarchies which do not understand multibyte encodings.]
SM> 
SM> Emacs always converts from/to the encoding you use.  So you don't really
SM> need to "convert from utf-8 to koi8", when sending email because, before the
SM> email is sent, it's not any more in utf-8 than in any other encoding (other
SM> than the internal encoding).
SM> I.e. all you need is to tell Emacs that when sending to newsgroups such and
SM> such, it should use koi8 rather than utf-8.  How to do that depends on the
SM> newsreader you're using.
SM> 
>> I am using Gnus, it does not have such functionality,
SM> 
SM> In what way does the functionality described in the node "Charsets" of the
SM> Gnus manual fail to provide the functionality you need?

It fails. Its default value contains element

("^\\(fido7\\|relcom\\)\\.[^,]*\\(,[ 	\n]*\\(fido7\\|relcom\\)\\.[^,]*\\)*$" koi8-r
  (koi8-r))

and my post to fido7 hierarchy go in utf-8 anyway.

>>>> Theoretically something like
>>>> (encode-coding-region (point-min) (point-max) 'koi8-r)
>>>> should work, but it does not.
SM> I don't think that's true in theory.
>> Why?
SM> 
SM> Because it completely depends on how and when you do it.  There already is
SM> an encoding step taking place somewhere.  So if you only add a call to
SM> encode-coding-region somewhere you'll simply cause a double encoding to
SM> happen which will most likely give you garbage.

Let's first talk about encoding regions. Why does not it work with
encode-coding-region?

What about garbage, if encoding/decoiding works I can always decode
into internal representation and encode into desired charset in
send-hook.

I would be happy to get an answer on question: "How do I decode and
encode in Emacs?"

SM> So one way to do it is to take care of the encoding yourself, which may
SM> amount to doing the whole "send" yourself (i.e. the NIH approach).
SM> Or the

NIH?

SM> other way is to figure out how to tell the code that already does the
SM> encoding to use koi8 rather than utf-8.

There is no such code right now, and, probably, I will write it. But
I'll need to make an encoding into koi8-r which does not seems to
work.

>> I have started emacs without ~/.emacs and evaluated 
>> (setq default-input-method "cyrillic-jcuken")
SM> 
SM> What's your locale?  What version of Emacs is this?
SM> 
>> What I got:
>> 1. Paste into Emacs frame works strange:
SM> 
SM> What text did you paste?  Where does it come from?

I type some Russian text in xterm and paste in into Emacs, have a look
at the attached screenshot.