Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

I am trying to use Gnu Emacs on MS Windows XP Japanese edition.

Does anyone know how to get Gnu Emacs to recognize Japanese characters
properly? There seem to be a lot of bugs. For example when I start Gnu
Emacs and try to open a new file, it correctly prints out

Find file: c:/Documents and Settings/bkb/デスクトップ

but then when I press "tab" it says that it can't find any files,
indicating that it simply doesn't recognize its own printout of the
directory. Going up one directory and then looking at c:/Documents and
Settings/bkb/ reveals that the desktop directory is mojibaked into

c:/Documents and Settings/bkb/\203f\203X\203N\203g\203b\203v/

I can open files in this directory OK but all the file names are
mojibaked.

The Gnu Emacs on Windows FAQ

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/big.html

says that I should add a line to .emacs

(set-w32-system-coding-system 'japanese-shift-jis)

but it seems to do no good at all.

It's a little frustrating not being able to open files in the desktop
or other folders because of the Japanese characters in the name.

Any suggestions?

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Marc Adler]

On Nov 8, 7:02 pm, Ben Bullock <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Any suggestions?

Use MSWord.

Marc

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

On Nov 9, 10:54 am, Marc Adler <marc.ad...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 8, 7:02 pm, Ben Bullock <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Any suggestions?
>
> Use MSWord.

As a text editor?

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Ben Bullock <benkasminbullock@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 17:02:51 -0800
> 
> Does anyone know how to get Gnu Emacs to recognize Japanese characters
> properly? There seem to be a lot of bugs. For example when I start Gnu
> Emacs and try to open a new file, it correctly prints out
> 
> Find file: c:/Documents and Settings/bkb/デスクトップ
> 
> but then when I press "tab" it says that it can't find any files,
> indicating that it simply doesn't recognize its own printout of the
> directory. Going up one directory and then looking at c:/Documents and
> Settings/bkb/ reveals that the desktop directory is mojibaked into
> 
> c:/Documents and Settings/bkb/\203f\203X\203N\203g\203b\203v/
> 
> I can open files in this directory OK but all the file names are
> mojibaked.

Try setting the value of file-name-coding-system to something Japanes,
like japanese-shift-jis.

> The Gnu Emacs on Windows FAQ
> 
> http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/windows/big.html
> 
> says that I should add a line to .emacs
> 
> (set-w32-system-coding-system 'japanese-shift-jis)
> 
> but it seems to do no good at all.

Right, because set-w32-system-coding-system is for font names, not
file names (as the FAQ says).

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Marc Adler]

On Nov 8, 10:04 pm, Ben Bullock <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:

> As a text editor?

Sure. "Save as ..." -> select "Plain Text" from the drop-down menu.

It work like a charm.

Marc

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Jason Rumney]

On 9 Nov, 01:02, Ben Bullock <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am trying to use Gnu Emacs on MS Windows XP Japanese edition.

What version of Emacs is that?

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

"Jason Rumney" <jasonrumney@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1194620929.862788.139380@y27g2000pre.googlegroups.com...
> On 9 Nov, 01:02, Ben Bullock <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I am trying to use Gnu Emacs on MS Windows XP Japanese edition.
>
> What version of Emacs is that?

This is GNU Emacs 22.0.990.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
 of 2007-05-24 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched) 

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Jason Rumney]

On 9 Nov, 21:47, "Ben Bullock" <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:

> This is GNU Emacs 22.0.990.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
>  of 2007-05-24 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched)

I don't see this problem in Emacs 22.1, so I suggest your first
attempt at resolving the problem should be to upgrade your old pretest
version to the released version of Emacs.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

"Jason Rumney" <jasonrumney@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1194655392.447673.257780@v2g2000hsf.googlegroups.com...
> On 9 Nov, 21:47, "Ben Bullock" <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> This is GNU Emacs 22.0.990.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600)
>>  of 2007-05-24 on LENNART-69DE564 (patched)
>
> I don't see this problem in Emacs 22.1, so I suggest your first
> attempt at resolving the problem should be to upgrade your old pretest
> version to the released version of Emacs.

Thanks, I've upgraded the Emacs but unfortunately this new one is not quite 
as good as the one I removed. In fact the problems with the Japanese were 
solved by adding some things to .emacs:

(prefer-coding-system 'shift_jis)
(setq default-buffer-file-coding-system 'shift_jis)
(setq file-name-coding-system 'shift_jis)

(set-default-coding-systems 'shift_jis)
(set-terminal-coding-system 'shift_jis)

(set-keyboard-coding-system 'shift_jis)
(set-language-environment 'Japanese)

Now it works, although I'm not sure which bits are necessary and which 
aren't.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Evan Monroig]

"Ben Bullock" <benkasminbullock@gmail.com> writes:

> In fact the problems with the Japanese were solved by adding some
> things to .emacs:
>
> (prefer-coding-system 'shift_jis)
> (setq default-buffer-file-coding-system 'shift_jis)
> (setq file-name-coding-system 'shift_jis)
>
> (set-default-coding-systems 'shift_jis)
> (set-terminal-coding-system 'shift_jis)
>
> (set-keyboard-coding-system 'shift_jis)
> (set-language-environment 'Japanese)
>
> Now it works, although I'm not sure which bits are necessary and which
> aren't.

Sorry for that.  If you want to pin down, a good idea is to look at the
help of those functions (put your cursor on the function name in .emacs
and press "C-h f") and variables (this time "C-h v").

Evan

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Jason Rumney]

On 10 Nov, 02:40, "Ben Bullock" <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks, I've upgraded the Emacs but unfortunately this new one is not quite
> as good as the one I removed.

There was a regression in the last week before 22.1 was released? Can
you be more specific?

> In fact the problems with the Japanese were
> solved by adding some things to .emacs:
>
> (prefer-coding-system 'shift_jis)
> (setq default-buffer-file-coding-system 'shift_jis)
> (setq file-name-coding-system 'shift_jis)
>
> (set-default-coding-systems 'shift_jis)
> (set-terminal-coding-system 'shift_jis)
>
> (set-keyboard-coding-system 'shift_jis)
> (set-language-environment 'Japanese)
>
> Now it works, although I'm not sure which bits are necessary and which
> aren't.

None of it should be necessary if you are using a Japanese version of
Windows, configured for Japanese as the default language for all
programs.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:28:58 +0000, Jason Rumney wrote:

> On 10 Nov, 02:40, "Ben Bullock" <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Thanks, I've upgraded the Emacs but unfortunately this new one is not
>> quite as good as the one I removed.
> 
> There was a regression in the last week before 22.1 was released? Can
> you be more specific?

The old version was the one from EmacsW32, which was better integrated 
into Windows XP than the bare Gnu one. For example, the bare Gnu one 
doesn't get registered somehow, so when Windows asks you for options for 
using on a particular file, the choice of Emacs doesn't come up. With 
EmacsW32, it worked better in various ways including this one.

>> In fact the problems with the Japanese were solved by adding some
>> things to .emacs:
>>
>> (prefer-coding-system 'shift_jis)
>> (setq default-buffer-file-coding-system 'shift_jis) (setq
>> file-name-coding-system 'shift_jis)
>>
>> (set-default-coding-systems 'shift_jis) (set-terminal-coding-system
>> 'shift_jis)
>>
>> (set-keyboard-coding-system 'shift_jis) (set-language-environment
>> 'Japanese)
>>
>> Now it works, although I'm not sure which bits are necessary and which
>> aren't.
> 
> None of it should be necessary if you are using a Japanese version of
> Windows, configured for Japanese as the default language for all
> programs.

Well, it is.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Jason Rumney]

On 12 Nov, 22:40, Ben Bullock <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:28:58 +0000, Jason Rumney wrote:

> > None of it should be necessary if you are using a Japanese version of
> > Windows, configured for Japanese as the default language for all
> > programs.
>
> Well, it is.

If you create a bug report (from the Help menu, or with M-x report-
emacs-bug), are the following lines exactly as here, or are they
different?

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: JPN
  locale-coding-system: cp932
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

"Jason Rumney" <jasonrumney@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1194917576.638938.16920@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On 12 Nov, 22:40, Ben Bullock <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:28:58 +0000, Jason Rumney wrote:
>
>> > None of it should be necessary if you are using a Japanese version of
>> > Windows, configured for Japanese as the default language for all
>> > programs.
>>
>> Well, it is.
>
> If you create a bug report (from the Help menu, or with M-x report-
> emacs-bug), are the following lines exactly as here, or are they
> different?
>
> Important settings:
>  value of $LC_ALL: nil
>  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
>  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
>  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
>  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
>  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
>  value of $LC_TIME: nil
>  value of $LANG: JPN
>  locale-coding-system: cp932
>  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

I got

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_GB
  locale-coding-system: cp932
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

The language seems to be set to en_GB.

But I had a look at the control panel, and it says that the system language 
is Japanese:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bnz/1994894262/

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Jason Rumney]

On 13 Nov, 04:30, "Ben Bullock" <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Jason Rumney" <jasonrum...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:1194917576.638938.16920@d55g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>
> > On 12 Nov, 22:40, Ben Bullock <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 15:28:58 +0000, Jason Rumney wrote:
>
> >> > None of it should be necessary if you are using a Japanese version of
> >> > Windows, configured for Japanese as the default language for all
> >> > programs.
>
> >> Well, it is.
>
> > If you create a bug report (from the Help menu, or with M-x report-
> > emacs-bug), are the following lines exactly as here, or are they
> > different?
>
> > Important settings:
> >  value of $LC_ALL: nil
> >  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
> >  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
> >  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
> >  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
> >  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
> >  value of $LC_TIME: nil
> >  value of $LANG: JPN
> >  locale-coding-system: cp932
> >  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t
>
> I got
>
> Important settings:
>   value of $LC_ALL: nil
>   value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
>   value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
>   value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
>   value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
>   value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
>   value of $LC_TIME: nil
>   value of $LANG: en_GB
>   locale-coding-system: cp932
>   default-enable-multibyte-characters: t
>
> The language seems to be set to en_GB.
>
> But I had a look at the control panel, and it says that the system language
> is Japanese:
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/bnz/1994894262/

There's another setting on the third tab of that dialog. In English,
it is labelled "Language for non-Unicode programs", but that is
misleading, since it is what determines the language that is returned
from all the locale functions, whether Unicode or not. The settings on
the first page only affect things like number formatting.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

"Jason Rumney" <jasonrumney@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1194944384.261646.303620@v65g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

> There's another setting on the third tab of that dialog. In English,
> it is labelled "Language for non-Unicode programs", but that is
> misleading, since it is what determines the language that is returned
> from all the locale functions, whether Unicode or not. The settings on
> the first page only affect things like number formatting.

In my case it looks like this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bnz/2014240467/

As you can see it is set to 日本語 (Japanese). I don't believe this is 
because of something I have set up with just my home computer, since I have 
a virtually identical Windows XP computer at work, and Emacs behaves in 
exactly the same way there - it refuses to acknowledge the existence of any 
files in

C:\Documents and Settings\bkb\デスクトップ\

even though this is the directory which comes up by default when I press C-x 
C-f, and (without the shift-jis parts in .emacs) it mojibakes the directory 
names. I haven't tried using the shift-JIS thing copied from Evan Monroig's 
.emacs at work yet, but I am sure that Gnu Emacs behaves this way on at 
least two standard Japanese Windows XP PCs.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Jason Rumney]

On 14 Nov, 09:11, "Ben Bullock" <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:

> In my case it looks like this:
>
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/bnz/2014240467/
>
> As you can see it is set to     (Japanese). I don't believe this is
> because of something I have set up with just my home computer, since I have
> a virtually identical Windows XP computer at work, and Emacs behaves in
> exactly the same way there

You must have set the same thing up at work. Looking back, your LANG
is set to en_GB.
This is the standard ISO code for British English (Japanese would be
ja_JP). But
Windows doesn't use the standard ISO codes, it uses ENG and JPN
respectively. So we can rule out any Windows settings, and concentrate
on changes made to your environment variables. Look in the System
control panel under Advanced, and see if there is a setting for LANG
in the Environment Variables.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Jason Rumney]

On 14 Nov, 10:10, Jason Rumney <jasonrum...@gmail.com> wrote:

> You must have set the same thing up at work. Looking back, your LANG
> is set to en_GB.
> This is the standard ISO code for British English (Japanese would be
> ja_JP). But
> Windows doesn't use the standard ISO codes, it uses ENG and JPN
> respectively. So we can rule out any Windows settings, and concentrate
> on changes made to your environment variables. Look in the System
> control panel under Advanced, and see if there is a setting for LANG
> in the Environment Variables.

I've changed things so that setting LANG will not affect default-file-
name-coding-system in 22.2, since it isn't really possible to affect
the file system using environment variables like that on Windows.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

"Jason Rumney" <jasonrumney@gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:1195035011.109472.275080@o3g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...

> You must have set the same thing up at work. Looking back, your LANG
> is set to en_GB.

Well, I haven't made any adjustments to that PC so I'm not sure why.

> This is the standard ISO code for British English (Japanese would be
> ja_JP). But
> Windows doesn't use the standard ISO codes, it uses ENG and JPN
> respectively. So we can rule out any Windows settings, and concentrate
> on changes made to your environment variables. Look in the System
> control panel under Advanced, and see if there is a setting for LANG
> in the Environment Variables.

As I've said above, the behaviour is the same on two Japanese Windows PCs. I 
don't think I've ever even visited the "Control Panel" on the one at work. 
But, as you said, I found the LANG variable set up in the System / Advanced 
(it is システムのプロパティ・詳細設定・環境変数) on Japanese Windows) menu. 
Since I didn't set it up at all, the only thing I can think of is that LANG 
was set up like that by either GIMP or Inkscape or Firefox, since I have all 
of these both on the home machine and the work machine, and they all have 
language settings (all set to something like en_GB). I definitely have never 
set it up like that myself.

Anyway, I deleted LANG from the menu, and then I commented out the lines in 
.emacs which set it to shift-jis. Then I tried starting up Emacs again, and 
found that it seems to open the directories correctly now. I'm very glad 
that it works, although I'm a bit concerned how LANG got set like that.

Thank you Jason for your assistance and for sticking with the problem long 
enough to get to a solution.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Jason Rumney]

On 14 Nov, 12:18, "Ben Bullock" <benkasminbull...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Anyway, I deleted LANG from the menu, and then I commented out the lines in
> .emacs which set it to shift-jis. Then I tried starting up Emacs again, and
> found that it seems to open the directories correctly now. I'm very glad
> that it works, although I'm a bit concerned how LANG got set like that.

I think your guess of the GIMP or Inkscape installer is most likely
(Firefox less so). Another way to get an English interface in those
programs without setting LANG is to delete or rename the Japanese
resource file.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Bullock]

On Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:19:55 +0000, Jason Rumney wrote:

> I think your guess of the GIMP or Inkscape installer is most likely
> (Firefox less so). Another way to get an English interface in those
> programs without setting LANG is to delete or rename the Japanese
> resource file.

As a postscript to this, yesterday I had a look at the work machine and 
found that LANG was set to C of all things. I can't understand how that 
happened.

Re: Gnu Emacs under Japanese MS Windows

[Ben Finney]

Ben Bullock <benkasminbullock@gmail.com> writes:

> As a postscript to this, yesterday I had a look at the work machine
> and found that LANG was set to C of all things. I can't understand
> how that happened.

IIRC, in the absence of any other setting, the locale settings default
to "C" for backwards compatibility (meaning "whatever the original C
libraries did before all this new-fangled internationalisation").

-- 
 \     Rommel: "Don't move, or I'll turn the key on this can of Spam!" |
  `\                             -- The Goon Show, _Rommel's Treasure_ |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney