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: Re: How do I read and write an iso-8859-1 file in Emacs 23? Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:42:22 +0000 Message-ID: <20100330104222.GA3122@muc.de> References: <20100328204351.GA2402@muc.de> <83634f3ady.fsf@gnu.org> 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 1269945713 14141 80.91.229.12 (30 Mar 2010 10:41:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:41:53 +0000 (UTC) Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Mar 30 12:41:49 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 1NwYtI-00031c-8U for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:41:48 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:41023 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NwYtH-000595-LM for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:41:47 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NwYsR-0004qi-SL for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:40:55 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=36545 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NwYsP-0004o8-Jy for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:40:54 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NwYsN-0002nh-7J for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:40:53 -0400 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1]:2390 helo=mail.muc.de) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NwYsM-0002nI-Sf for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 06:40:51 -0400 Original-Received: (qmail 97687 invoked by uid 3782); 30 Mar 2010 10:34:07 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (pD9E22240.dip.t-dialin.net [217.226.34.64]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:34:05 +0200 Original-Received: (qmail 3273 invoked by uid 1000); 30 Mar 2010 10:42:22 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <83634f3ady.fsf@gnu.org> 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:72544 Archived-At: Hi, Eli, On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 09:33:13AM +0300, Eli Zaretskii wrote: > > Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 20:43:51 +0000 > > From: Alan Mackenzie > > the subject just about says everything. > It is strange to read such questions in the year 2010 regarding Emacs > 23. I feel that Emacs 23 is less stable in this respect than Emacs 22. > > 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. > What does Emacs tell about this character when you type "C-u C-x =" > with point on the ü (before it is converted to \374)? Also, how did > you insert that character into the buffer? My buffer is now doing the Right Thing, both displaying a ü ("u umlaut") as it should be, and saving it correctly as the single byte 0xfc. Previously, it was sometimes being displayed as "\374" as I typed. I don't know exactly what I did to achieve this; I'm thoroughly confused about it. To insert the ü, I typed a key-combination programmed to generate 0xFC on a Linux virtual terminal. > I suspect that something causes Emacs to treat it as a raw byte \374, > rather than a Latin-1 character. (Yes, Emacs can distinguish between > these two.) > > 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? > Yes. But it shouldn't be needed in most situations. I've since removed it. > > Is it causing me problems? > It shouldn't. Thanks! > > 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. > If you have this trouble in a file you visited and did not modify yet, > it could be that the file includes some raw bytes that don't fit any > encoding known to Emacs, or perhaps Emacs detected the encoding > incorrectly. What does `buffer-file-coding-system' evaluate to in > this buffer, immediately after you visit the file? I've lost that info, now. It was probably raw-text or no-translation (whatever the difference is between these two). > > Why is Emacs insisting on trying to be so clever? > Because it's Emacs ;-) Ah, OK! -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).