umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[josh]

Hi *,

I'm running emacs 21.4.1 on debian etch with xorg 7.1 and using gnome
2.14 desktop.

Since upgrading to xorg 7.1 (I think that's what caused it, can't
confirm though...) the input of umlaut characters and "ess-zed" (i.e.
öäüß) no longer works in emacs but does in all my other x apps like
gnome-terminal, thunderbird, etc.

As far as I can see, emacs doesn't even get a key event, since if I run
C-h k ("describe key") and then enter one of these keys, emacs doesn't
respond and continues to wait for input.

If I capture the key-event with xev, the event is registered, but
XLookupString fails and nothing is returned:

KeyPress event, serial 25, synthetic NO, window 0x3800001,
    root 0x64, subw 0x0, time 1240145440, (128,63), root:(143,184),
    state 0x0, keycode 47 (keysym 0xf6, odiaeresis), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 0 bytes:

as opposed to pressing a "normal" key (here the letter "a"):

KeyPress event, serial 25, synthetic NO, window 0x3800001,
    root 0x64, subw 0x0, time 1240200466, (94,91), root:(109,212),
    state 0x0, keycode 38 (keysym 0x61, a), same_screen YES,
    XLookupString gives 1 bytes: (61) "a"


My locale is:
josh@om:~$ locale
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="de_DE.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

Thanks in advance for any help.

-j

Re: umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 22.01.2007 um 14:11 schrieb josh:

> My locale is:
> josh@om:~$ locale

I don't think that this is the right thing. AFAIR GNU Emacs wants to  
see environment variables LANG or LC_CTYPE ...


Have you checked whether the X server and GNU Emacs use the same X  
libraries?

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

With Capitalism man exploits man. With communism it's the exact  
opposite.

Re: umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[josh]

Hi Peter,

thanks for your reply.

Peter Dyballa wrote:
> I don't think that this is the right thing. AFAIR GNU Emacs wants to
> see environment variables LANG or LC_CTYPE ...

I'm confused here because the locale output I posted showed that these
variables are set:

LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="de_DE.UTF-8"

or what do you mean?


> Have you checked whether the X server and GNU Emacs use the same X
> libraries?

you mean like with ldd? I can do this (see below) and their share some
libraries, but I don't know how this helps. Can you clue me in?

-j


josh@om:~$ ldd /usr/bin/Xorg | sort
        libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0xb7d9a000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/libdl.so.2 (0xb7f93000)
        libfontenc.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontenc.so.1 (0xb7f16000)
        libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0xb7d30000)
        libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0xb7ecc000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7fab000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0xb7ed7000)
        libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0xb7f1c000)
        libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xb7f11000)
        libXfont.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXfont.so.1 (0xb7f1f000)
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0xb7efc000)
        linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xffffe000)

josh@om:~$ ldd /usr/bin/emacs | sort
        libc.so.6 => /lib/tls/libc.so.6 (0xb7b5d000)
        libdl.so.2 => /lib/tls/libdl.so.2 (0xb7b50000)
        libICE.so.6 => /usr/lib/libICE.so.6 (0xb7e8f000)
        libjpeg.so.62 => /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62 (0xb7e12000)
        /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0xb7f83000)
        libm.so.6 => /lib/tls/libm.so.6 (0xb7db6000)
        libncurses.so.5 => /lib/libncurses.so.5 (0xb7c8f000)
        libpng12.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 (0xb7def000)
        libSM.so.6 => /usr/lib/libSM.so.6 (0xb7ea7000)
        libtiff.so.4 => /usr/lib/libtiff.so.4 (0xb7e30000)
        libungif.so.4 => /usr/lib/libungif.so.4 (0xb7dad000)
        libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0xb7cd1000)
        libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0xb7b59000)
        libXaw3d.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXaw3d.so.6 (0xb7f16000)
        libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0xb7b54000)
        libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0xb7e80000)
        libXmu.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXmu.so.6 (0xb7f00000)
        libXpm.so.4 => /usr/lib/libXpm.so.4 (0xb7d97000)
        libXt.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXt.so.6 (0xb7eb0000)
        libz.so.1 => /usr/lib/libz.so.1 (0xb7ddb000)
        linux-gate.so.1 =>  (0xffffe000)

Re: umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 22.01.2007 um 16:24 schrieb josh:

> I'm confused here because the locale output I posted showed that these
> variables are set:
>
> LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
> LC_CTYPE="de_DE.UTF-8"
>
> or what do you mean?

On the command line: env | egrep 'LC|LANG'

>
>> Have you checked whether the X server and GNU Emacs use the same X
>> libraries?
>
> you mean like with ldd? I can do this (see below) and their share some
> libraries, but I don't know how this helps. Can you clue me in?

One imagine that tool a uses X11R7.1 and tool b uses X11R6 ... but  
this does not seem to be the case here!

There is one more thing: what is put into the *mail* buffer when you  
choose 'Send Bug Report…' from the Help menu? It reveals the  
configure options. Do they look right?


Since I am still bound to X11R6 on my Mac I have no real idea of the  
cause that XLookupString returns 0. The programme xmodmap can print  
the key bindings in X:

	xmodmap -pk

Are the umlauts and ß mentioned in first and second column like some  
7 bit characters? Or do they need modifiers? My X server tells me:

      35         0x00df (ssharp) 	0x003f (question)       0x00bf  
(questiondown)   0x01ff (abovedot)
      41         0x00fc (udiaeresis)     0x00dc (Udiaeresis)      
0x0ae6 (enfilledcircbullet)    0x00b0 (degree)
      47         0x00e4 (adiaeresis)     0x00c4 (Adiaeresis)      
0x00e6 (ae)     	0x00c6 (AE)
      49         0x00f6 (odiaeresis)     0x00d6 (Odiaeresis)      
0x13bd (oe)     	0x13bc (OE)


--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

Mac OS X is like a wigwam: no fences, no gates, but an apache inside.

Re: umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[josh]

Hi Peter,

thanks for your continued help...

> On the command line: env | egrep 'LC|LANG'

josh@om:~$ env | egrep 'LC|LANG'
LANG=de_DE.UTF-8
GDM_LANG=de_DE.UTF-8

(no LC var set...)

> There is one more thing: what is put into the *mail* buffer when you
> choose 'Send Bug Report…' from the Help menu? It reveals the configure
> options. Do they look right?

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: de_DE.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

so lang is set, but the LC vars aren't. However, if I set them in a term
and start emacs, the "send bug report" reports them, but I still have
the same problem with the umlaut keys...

> Since I am still bound to X11R6 on my Mac I have no real idea of the
> cause that XLookupString returns 0. The programme xmodmap can print the
> key bindings in X:
> 
>     xmodmap -pk
> 
> Are the umlauts and ß mentioned in first and second column like some 7
> bit characters? Or do they need modifiers?

I can't tell if they need modifiers, but they are mentioned and the
output looks similar to yours:


20         0x00df (ssharp) 0x003f (question)       0x005c (backslash)
   0x00bf (questiondown)   0x005c (backslash)      0x00bf (questiondown)

34         0x00fc (udiaeresis)     0x00dc (Udiaeresis)     0x00a8
(diaeresis)      0x00a8 (diaeresis)      0x00a8 (diaeresis)      0x00a8
(diaeresis)

47         0x00f6 (odiaeresis)     0x00d6 (Odiaeresis)     0x01bd
(doubleacute)    0x01bd (doubleacute)    0x01bd (doubleacute)    0x01bd
(doubleacute)

48         0x00e4 (adiaeresis)     0x00c4 (Adiaeresis)     0x005e
(asciicircum)    0x005e (asciicircum)    0x005e (asciicircum)    0x005e
(asciicircum)



-j

Re: umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[josh]

I just noticed this when I started emacs in the terminal (after setting
the LC variables):

josh@om:~$ emacs &
[1] 899
josh@om:~$ Warning: locale not supported by Xlib, locale set to C


could this be the problem?

Re: umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[josh]

Peter Dyballa wrote:
> There is one more thing: what is put into the *mail* buffer when you
> choose 'Send Bug Report…' from the Help menu? It reveals the configure
> options. Do they look right?

I just saw that you explicitly wrote "configure options". here they are:

In GNU Emacs 21.4.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2006-10-25 on raven, modified by Debian
configured using `configure  '--build=i486-linux-gnu'
'--host=i486-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib'
'--libexecdir=/usr/lib' '--localstatedir=/var/lib'
'--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes'
'--with-x=yes' '--with-x-toolkit=athena' 'build_alias=i486-linux-gnu'
'host_alias=i486-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-DDEBIAN -g -O2''


looks ok to me...

-j

Re: umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[josh]

josh wrote:
> I just noticed this when I started emacs in the terminal (after setting
> the LC variables):
> 
> josh@om:~$ emacs &
> [1] 899
> josh@om:~$ Warning: locale not supported by Xlib, locale set to C
> 
> 
> could this be the problem?
> 

this was the problem...don't know why, but for some reason the xlib
didn't get updated when I updated to xorg 7.1, so it was the wrong
version. after updating it works fine.

if you hadn't asked me about the env vars, I wouldn't have found it, so
you help quite a bit indirectly, thanks!

-j

Re: umlaut keys don't work in emacs but do in other x apps

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 22.01.2007 um 18:29 schrieb josh:

> josh wrote:
>> I just noticed this when I started emacs in the terminal (after  
>> setting
>> the LC variables):
>>
>> josh@om:~$ emacs &
>> [1] 899
>> josh@om:~$ Warning: locale not supported by Xlib, locale set to C
>>
>>
>> could this be the problem?
>>
>
> this was the problem...don't know why, but for some reason the xlib
> didn't get updated when I updated to xorg 7.1, so it was the wrong
> version. after updating it works fine.

Fine, that it finally got solved in my absence!

I think you should also set LC_CTYPE to your usual locale. GNU Emacs  
then adapts itself much better and you can avoid to set-language- 
environment ...

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the  
impurities in our air and water that are doing it."