Re: undecided vs utf-8

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>
> Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:27:57 +0100
> 
> When using erc, it decodes iso-8859-1 fine with the default `undecided'
> into encoding.  However, any utf-8 strings are, sort of, just translated
> into the same coding system:
> 
> (decode-coding-string "u-te-\303\246ff \303\245tte" 'undecided)
> => "u-te-æff åtte"
> 
> (decode-coding-string "u-te-\303\246ff \303\245tte" 'utf-8)
> => "u-te-æff åtte"

Please show the output of "M-x mule-diag RET" on the machine where
this happens.

> Shouldn't `decode-coding-string' prefer utf-8 if it's actually
> valid?

Depending on the user's locale and preferences, this could easily
backfire, especially if the text is insufficiently long to distinguish
between the two.

Using incorrect decoder in a small fraction of cases is a fact of
life; every program out there hits this from time to time.  What we
need is good defaults, and ways to customize those in specific
situations.  In this case, perhaps erc should use its own defaults, if
UTF-8 is widely (or solely) used there.