I do not want to select a coding system

I do not want to select a coding system

[Bruce Korb]

Hi,

Every now and then, it becomes completely impossible to save the
contents of a new file I am creating.  Emacs demands I select a
coding system and none of them are plain old vanilla ASCII text..
It seems really nice and clever and egalitarian to allow for so many
coding systems.  It is really wonderful.  But compilers want ASCII and
I cannot get plain ascii.  In the end, I go into a shell and type:

cat > myfile.c <<\_EOF_
<<paste-a-gazillion-lines>>
_EOF_

and revisit "myfile.c".  Works like a charm, but is an incredible hassle.

I only want ASCII.  I've waded through the bazillion lines of configurable
stuff, too, and there is no obvious to me selection to say, "I always,
always, always edit ASCII text".  What is the magic?  Thanks.

Regards, Bruce

Re: I do not want to select a coding system

[B. T. Raven]

Bruce Korb wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Every now and then, it becomes completely impossible to save the
> contents of a new file I am creating.  Emacs demands I select a
> coding system and none of them are plain old vanilla ASCII text..
> It seems really nice and clever and egalitarian to allow for so many
> coding systems.  It is really wonderful.  But compilers want ASCII and
> I cannot get plain ascii.  In the end, I go into a shell and type:
> 
> cat > myfile.c <<\_EOF_
> <<paste-a-gazillion-lines>>
> _EOF_
> 
> and revisit "myfile.c".  Works like a charm, but is an incredible hassle.
> 
> I only want ASCII.  I've waded through the bazillion lines of configurable
> stuff, too, and there is no obvious to me selection to say, "I always,
> always, always edit ASCII text".  What is the magic?  Thanks.
> 
> Regards, Bruce
> 
> 


us-ascii and iso-safe are coding systems. Maybe putting

;; -*- coding: iso-safe -*-

at the top of your files would work.

Re: I do not want to select a coding system

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 05.02.2010 um 00:02 schrieb B. T. Raven:

> us-ascii and iso-safe are coding systems. Maybe putting
>
> ;; -*- coding: iso-safe -*-
>
> at the top of your files would work.



At least a modern Emacs, version 23.x, would name the non-ASCII  
characters then when trying to save the mix of characters...

--
Greetings

   Pete

No matter which way you ride, it's uphill and against the wind.
				– First Law of Bicycling

Re: I do not want to select a coding system

[Pascal J. Bourguignon]

"B. T. Raven" <nihil@nihilo.net> writes:

> Bruce Korb wrote:
>> Hi,
>> 
>> Every now and then, it becomes completely impossible to save the
>> contents of a new file I am creating.  Emacs demands I select a
>> coding system and none of them are plain old vanilla ASCII text..
>> It seems really nice and clever and egalitarian to allow for so many
>> coding systems.  It is really wonderful.  But compilers want ASCII and
>> I cannot get plain ascii.  In the end, I go into a shell and type:
>> 
>> cat > myfile.c <<\_EOF_
>> <<paste-a-gazillion-lines>>
>> _EOF_
>> 
>> and revisit "myfile.c".  Works like a charm, but is an incredible hassle.
>> 
>> I only want ASCII.  I've waded through the bazillion lines of configurable
>> stuff, too, and there is no obvious to me selection to say, "I always,
>> always, always edit ASCII text".  What is the magic?  Thanks.
>> 
>> Regards, Bruce
>> 
>> 
>
>
> us-ascii and iso-safe are coding systems. Maybe putting
>
> ;; -*- coding: iso-safe -*-
>
> at the top of your files would work.


The OP wants ASCII, so:

;; -*- coding:us-ascii -*-


-- 
__Pascal Bourguignon__

Re: I do not want to select a coding system

[Jason Rumney]

On Feb 5, 6:41 am, Bruce Korb <bruce.k...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Every now and then, it becomes completely impossible to save the
> contents of a new file I am creating.  Emacs demands I select a
> coding system and none of them are plain old vanilla ASCII text..

Thats because Emacs only prompts you when there are non-ASCII
characters in your file. How can you save non-ASCII characters as
ASCII?

Re: I do not want to select a coding system

[Tim X]

Bruce Korb <bruce.korb@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi,
>
> Every now and then, it becomes completely impossible to save the
> contents of a new file I am creating.  Emacs demands I select a
> coding system and none of them are plain old vanilla ASCII text..
> It seems really nice and clever and egalitarian to allow for so many
> coding systems.  It is really wonderful.  But compilers want ASCII and
> I cannot get plain ascii.  In the end, I go into a shell and type:
>
> cat > myfile.c <<\_EOF_
> <<paste-a-gazillion-lines>>
> _EOF_
>
> and revisit "myfile.c".  Works like a charm, but is an incredible hassle.
>
> I only want ASCII.  I've waded through the bazillion lines of configurable
> stuff, too, and there is no obvious to me selection to say, "I always,
> always, always edit ASCII text".  What is the magic?  Thanks.
>

What platform?
What version of emacs?
What is your locale setting?
What does emacs say is the current language environment when it starts
up?

Generally, if things are not working correctly, either your locale is
not set correctly or you have stuff in your .emacs that is confusing
emacs. Note also that UTF-8 is rapidly becoming the default and many
compilers can handle that fine. Are you working with a version control
system? Issues can arise if the version control systm isn't configured
correctly and you are working with others who are on different platforms
etc. 

I do a lot of coding and have to deal with gcc/g++ and a number of
scripting languages etc. On the whole, I don't run into any issues these
days and my environment is pretty much UTF-8 across the borad. I'm
running on a Debian system with emacs 23.

Note also that the handling of character encoding in emacs 23 has been
improved a lot. Worth considering upgrading if your not htere yet.

Tim

-- 
tcross (at) rapttech dot com dot au