Re: Rmail and the raw-text coding system

[Mark Lillibridge <mark.lillibridge@hp.com>]

Stefan wrote:
>  >> >     I assume it did so because the buffer contained "invalid" code
>  >> > points.
>  >> That would mean that the BABYL file is corrupted.  Is it?
>  
>  >     Not as far as I can tell.  Weird characters are displayed for some
>  > messages, but that is normal with Rmail 22 as it doesn't understand
>  > MIME.  I believe the use of raw-text does not lose data.
>  
>  The BABYL file is supposed to use the emacs-mule encoding.  So if it
>  contains invalid emacs-mule byte sequences, it presumably means
>  it's corrupted.  Of course, maybe they are valid sequences which
>  Emacs23/24 rejects by mistake, or maybe there's yet something else
>  going on.
>  
>  But AFAIK BABYL files use a single encoding for the whole file, and
>  since around Emacs-21.x that single encoding is supposed to be
>  emacs-mule (and I seem to remember that the BABYL file is supposed to
>  contain an annotation at the very beginning saying it's using
>  emacs-mule, if so).

    Arguably, it is a Rmail 22 bug that some BABYL files are encoded
using raw-text.  This does not necessarily make them "corrupted".  I
have over 85 such files so this problem seems to be fairly common.

    I haven't tried to figure out the logic Emacs 22 uses when trying to
decide if the current buffer can be written out as emacs-mule.  The
weird code points is just a guess on my part at this point.

- Mark