From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: How do I read and write an iso-8859-1 file in Emacs 23? Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:43:51 +0000 Message-ID: <20100328204351.GA2402@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: dough.gmane.org 1269809016 7026 80.91.229.12 (28 Mar 2010 20:43:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:43:36 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 28 22:43:32 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NvzKU-0008AF-4k for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:43:30 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:45968 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NvzKT-0005lp-K7 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:43:29 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NvzJO-0005Om-C9 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:42:22 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=55211 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NvzJN-0005No-5Y for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:42:22 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NvzJM-000868-40 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:42:21 -0400 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:2626 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NvzJL-00085t-PX for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Sun, 28 Mar 2010 16:42:20 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 38929 invoked by uid 3782); 28 Mar 2010 20:35:37 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (pD9E23582.dip.t-dialin.net [217.226.53.130]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Sun, 28 Mar 2010 22:35:35 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 4777 invoked by uid 1000); 28 Mar 2010 20:43:51 -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 eggs.gnu.org: FreeBSD 4.6-4.9 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:72524 Archived-At: Hi, everybody, the subject just about says everything. Emacs 23 insists on fouling up my text, converting (for example) ü ("u umlaut") into \374 each time I try to save it. It then complains it can't save \374 because it can't "convert" it. In desperation, I tried putting this on the first line of the text: -*- mode : Text ; buffer-file-coding-system : iso-8859-1-unix -*- . Should this help? Is it causing me problems? I've tried reading the fine manual. It helps me not in the slightest. What am I missing here? All I want to do is read an 8859-1 text file, edit it, and write it back again. How do I tell Emacs that an 0xFC character in the file is actually a "u umlaut", and not anything else. Why is Emacs insisting on trying to be so clever? -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).