Re: mm-util.el question

[Katsumi Yamaoka <yamaoka@jpl.org>]

>>>>> In <61hdicykk7.fsf@fencepost.gnu.org> Miles Bader wrote:

> In merging some of Stefan's Gnus changes from the Emacs tree into the Gnus
> trunk, I ran across this change, which I'm not sure about, in mm-util.el:

> @@ -75,4 +93,5 @@
>       (string-as-multibyte . identity)
> +     (string-to-multibyte . mm-string-as-multibyte)
>       (multibyte-string-p . ignore)
>       ;; It is not a MIME function, but some MIME functions use it.
>       (make-temp-file . (lambda (prefix &optional dir-flag)

It cannot achieve the purpose in Emacs 21.  Currently, it is
used in `gnus-mime-inline-part' in the Gnus trunk to display
binary data *as is*.  For example:

(let ((string (string-as-unibyte "\xf8\xf9\xfa\xfb\xfc\xfd\xfe\xff"))
      (buffer (get-buffer-create "*testing*")))
  (pop-to-buffer buffer)
  (erase-buffer)
  (set-buffer-multibyte t)
  (insert (mm-string-to-multibyte string)))

The `string' have to be shown as `\370\371\372\373\374\375\376\377',
not as some *characters*.

> The Gnus trunk already has an entry for `string-to-multibyte':

>      (string-to-multibyte
>       . (lambda (string)
> 	  "Return a multibyte string with the same individual chars as string."
> 	  (mapconcat
> 	   (lambda (ch) (mm-string-as-multibyte (char-to-string ch)))
> 	   string "")))

> So is the more complicated Gnus version necessary, or would Stefan's version
> (making `mm-string-to-multibyte' the same as `mm-string-as-multibyte') work
> as well?

The latter seems to me to be profitable for all.