From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Inadequate documentation of silly characters on screen. Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:37:16 +0000 Message-ID: <20091118093716.GA1277@muc.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1258536756 10173 80.91.229.12 (18 Nov 2009 09:32:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:32:36 +0000 (UTC) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Wed Nov 18 10:32:29 2009 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1NAgtn-0002Ud-5c for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:32:27 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:44008 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NAgtm-0005x7-Eo for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:32:26 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NAgti-0005x2-1d for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:32:22 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NAgtc-0005ts-W8 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:32:21 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=45164 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NAgtc-0005tk-Ql for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:32:16 -0500 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:3944 helo=mail.muc.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1NAgtc-0002Bk-BC for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:32:16 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 74928 invoked by uid 3782); 18 Nov 2009 09:32:14 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (pD9E22877.dip.t-dialin.net [217.226.40.119]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:32:12 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 4046 invoked by uid 1000); 18 Nov 2009 09:37:16 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.5 (Fettercairn) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: FreeBSD 4.6-4.9 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:117158 Archived-At: Hi, Emacs, Once again, I'm getting silly characters on the screen. In *scratch*, where's I've written "ñ", what gets displayed is "\361". It may have happened when I upgraded to Emacs 23. This keeps happening to me, I don't know why, but most importantly it seems unusually poorly documented. Goodness knows how an ordinary user manages this, but I cannot easily track down the proper bit in the manual to sort this out. Things like character sets and their display isn't my area. Why won't it just work? I go to the coding systems page. There is no @def{coding system}, just vague references with which you're supposed to get the understanding by osmosis. What I DON'T get from this osmosis is whether or not "coding systems" deal with the garbage "\361" on my screen. There is definitely a missing "For the appearance of the text on your screen @ref{...}". So, once again, I've got between half an hour and an hour of wasted time trying to debug, yet again, this problem. Why can I not easily find the answer in the Emacs manual? Of secondary importance, why does this problem keep happening in the first place? -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).