From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Special Characters Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 05:46:10 +0300 Message-ID: <83bneepmod.fsf@gnu.org> References: <3aa57c28-0bd8-45ab-bcf9-b68029b02889@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1439261240 14862 80.91.229.3 (11 Aug 2015 02:47:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 02:47:20 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Tue Aug 11 04:47:11 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1ZOzap-0001YO-31 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Tue, 11 Aug 2015 04:47:11 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:60835 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZOzao-0000Eq-Hz for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Mon, 10 Aug 2015 22:47:10 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:43156) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZOzaf-0000EV-N5 for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 10 Aug 2015 22:47:02 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZOzac-0000G8-Gd for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 10 Aug 2015 22:47:01 -0400 Original-Received: from mtaout22.012.net.il ([80.179.55.172]:55111) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZOzac-0000FX-8R for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Mon, 10 Aug 2015 22:46:58 -0400 Original-Received: from conversion-daemon.a-mtaout22.012.net.il by a-mtaout22.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) id <0NSW00B00CPH9600@a-mtaout22.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Aug 2015 05:46:21 +0300 (IDT) Original-Received: from HOME-C4E4A596F7 ([87.69.4.28]) by a-mtaout22.012.net.il (HyperSendmail v2007.08) with ESMTPA id <0NSW00BB4D190T80@a-mtaout22.012.net.il> for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Tue, 11 Aug 2015 05:46:21 +0300 (IDT) In-reply-to: <3aa57c28-0bd8-45ab-bcf9-b68029b02889@googlegroups.com> X-012-Sender: halo1@inter.net.il X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Solaris 10 X-Received-From: 80.179.55.172 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:106452 Archived-At: > Date: Mon, 10 Aug 2015 18:37:34 -0700 (PDT) > From: Ian Baylis > Injection-Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2015 01:37:34 +0000 > > I have a file that has special characters in it. When I open the file in Emacs an ' is represented like: > \200\231 or just \231 > > What type of characters are they and is there a list of those characters I can use as reference for the future. Those are not necessarily "special". They could be normal characters that Emacs failed to decode, because other parts of the file were encoded inconsistently, or because it used the locale-specific defaults, and the file didn't tell it needs to be decoded differently. Are you sure this is not a UTF-8 encoded file? What happens if you visit it with "C-x RET c utf-8 RET C-x C-f FILE-NAME RET"?