Re: Setting file-name/process coding system from LANG

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    Currently set-language-environment sets `default-file-name-coding-system',
    which is overridden by `file-name-coding-system'.  Startup also apparently
    sets `default-file-name-coding-system' using LANG.  If startup set
    `file-name-coding-system' from LANG instead, then I think that would provide
    the proper semantics in this case.

What do people think of this suggestion?

    Which of these scenarios is more common?  I'm not sure, but it doesn't
    seem unreasonable to assume that _if_ LANG contains an explicit coding
    system, that it's "correct".

As long as it is not hard for users to override this setting
explicitly, when they want to, I agree.

There was also the suggestion of advising users to run
set-locale-environment in order to get back to the settings
specified by the locale.

And I had this idea:

    Perhaps we should add a single new language environment
    named `locale' or `according-to-locale' which has the effect
    of doing set-locale-environment.

Another idea is for set-language-environment to allow a language
environment name followed by a coding system name.  This would appear
to the user rather similar to Handa's suggestion, but it is much
easier to implement.  It would not construct a new language
environment for the combination, it would only set the language
environment and then set the coding system.


The previous discussion did not consider all of these alternatives
side by side.  Could people start a new discussion doing so?  Note
that the issue that was raised about how to choose the default coding
system for Chinese language environments is not really relevant here;
it is a real issue, but it is orthogonal to this one.