Re: w32 emacs Arabic

["B. T. Raven" <ecinmn@peoplepc.com>]

<jasonr (Jason Rumney) @ f2s.com> wrote in message
news:uek5gjijt.fsf@jasonrumney.net...
> "B. T. Raven" <ecinmn@peoplepc.com> writes:
>
> > What is the relation between codepages in cp*.nls files and their
> > definitions in emacs?
>
> I initially interpreted this only in the context of Arabic, but I see
> on re-reading it is an independant question.
>
> The codepage definitions in Emacs allow Emacs to convert to/from its
> internal encoding to Windows and DOS codepages.
>
> The cp*.nls files in your SYSTEM directory are what Windows uses to
> convert to/from its internal encoding (a Unicode variant) and those
> codepages.
>
> Emacs depends on the nls files only for display on Windows, and
> really only for historical reasons, since Emacs' Unicode support is
> probably good enough now (in CVS) to convert directly to Unicode
> without going via the Windows API MultiByteToWideChar() function.

Thanks, Eli and Jason. I guess I'm not surprised that this deucedly
difficult problem hasn't been straightened out yet. For those of you who
haven't seen right-to-left languages imbedded in left-to-right ones, try
running the cursor (via the left and right arrow keys) over the
following lines:
Now is the time for all good men
يَجِبُ عَلَى الإنْسَانِ أن يَكُونَ أمِيْنَاً وَصَادِقَاً مَعَ نَفْسِهِ
وَمَعَ أَهْلِهِ وَجِيْرَانِهِ وَأَنْ يَبْذُلَ
 to come to the aid of the typist.
كُلَّ جُهْدٍ فِي إِعْلاءِ شَأْنِ الوَطَنِ وَأَنْ يَعْمَلَ عَلَى مَا
يَجْلِبُ السَّعَادَةَ لِلنَّاسِ . ولَن
Four score and seven years ago
 يَتِمَّ لَهُ ذلِك إِلا بِأَنْ يُقَدِّمَ المَنْفَعَةَ العَامَّةَ عَلَى
المَنْفَعَةِ الخَاصَّةِ وَهذَا مِثَالٌ لِلتَّضْحِيَةِ .
"sdrowkcab sdrawkcab si sihT"

It works in Outlook Express under MS Windows anyway. But not to worry,
whatever Bill Gates can do Richard Stallman can do better.

Thanks again,

Ed

>