From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Displaying bytes (was: Inadequate documentation of silly characters on screen.) Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:47:13 -0500 Message-ID: References: <20091119155848.GB1314@muc.de> <87aayiihe9.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <20091119180848.GE1314@muc.de> <47325.130.55.118.19.1258658705.squirrel@webmail.lanl.gov> <20091119212550.GG1314@muc.de> <87my2ign8u.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> <912155b0911231334s2b52e8eq864251c9aed386b3@mail.gmail.com> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1259103130 28489 80.91.229.12 (24 Nov 2009 22:52:10 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:52:10 +0000 (UTC) Cc: dak@gnu.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Per_Starb=E4ck?= Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Nov 24 23:52:02 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1ND4Es-0000tP-J8 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:52:02 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:45223 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ND4Es-0000sS-Ct for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:52:02 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1ND4AJ-00077A-4t for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:47:19 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1ND4AE-00075p-LP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:47:18 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=35918 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1ND4AE-00075c-BS for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:47:14 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]:36244) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1ND4AD-0007a5-T5 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:47:13 -0500 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1ND4AD-0003Yg-Cc; Tue, 24 Nov 2009 17:47:13 -0500 In-reply-to: <912155b0911231334s2b52e8eq864251c9aed386b3@mail.gmail.com> (message from =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Per_Starb=E4ck?= on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 22:34:18 +0100) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:117710 Archived-At: $ od -c euro.txt 0000000 T h a t c o s t s 200 1 7 . \n 0000020 $ emacs euro.txt This is really a windows-1252 file and the strange character is supposed to be a Euro sign. For me, with no particular setup to make Emacs expect windows-1252 files that shows in emacs as "That costs \20017." with raw-text-unix. Why doesn't Emacs guess right, in this case? Could we make it guess right by changing the coding system priorities? If so, should we change the default priorities? It may be that a different set of priorities would cause similar problems in some other cases and the current defaults are the best. But if we have not looked at the question in several years, it would be worth studying it now. In that case revert-buffer-with-coding-system. Ideally I'd like Emacs to ask directly when opening the file in such a case, if it can't determine anything better than raw-bytes. Maybe so.