Encoding multibyte strings

Encoding multibyte strings

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Hi there.

I'm trying to get from this:

陈冬梅

to this:

CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:=E9=99=88=E5=86=AC=E6=A2=85

Assuming that the original characters were in utf-8, of course. So that
陈 is =E9=99=88, and so on.

I got this string by looking at a Vcard export from the Contacts app on
my Android phone. I'm trying to take an Emacs buffer and turn it into a
*.vcf card file to import into the same app -- basically I'm trying to
reverse-engineer the VCard encoding format so I can create a file to
feed to my phone.

I'm 99.9% sure that Emacs already comes with functions that will produce
my escaped coded string, but after many adventures with C-h f (during
which I learned quite a few unrelated tricks) I haven't found it. Can
someone enlighten me as to what the simplest way to do this is?

Thanks!

E

Re: Encoding multibyte strings

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
> Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 15:09:55 +0800
> 
> I'm trying to get from this:
> 
> 陈冬梅
> 
> to this:
> 
> CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:=E9=99=88=E5=86=AC=E6=A2=85
> 
> Assuming that the original characters were in utf-8, of course. So that
> 陈 is =E9=99=88, and so on.
> 
> I got this string by looking at a Vcard export from the Contacts app on
> my Android phone. I'm trying to take an Emacs buffer and turn it into a
> *.vcf card file to import into the same app -- basically I'm trying to
> reverse-engineer the VCard encoding format so I can create a file to
> feed to my phone.
> 
> I'm 99.9% sure that Emacs already comes with functions that will produce
> my escaped coded string, but after many adventures with C-h f (during
> which I learned quite a few unrelated tricks) I haven't found it. Can
> someone enlighten me as to what the simplest way to do this is?

Not sure what exactly are you looking for.  A wild guess is that

  (encode-coding-string 'utf-8 STRING)

and

  (quoted-printable-encode-string STRING)

will do the job, IIUC.

Re: Encoding multibyte strings

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
>> Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 15:09:55 +0800
>> 
>> I'm trying to get from this:
>> 
>> 陈冬梅
>> 
>> to this:
>> 
>> CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:=E9=99=88=E5=86=AC=E6=A2=85
>> 
>> Assuming that the original characters were in utf-8, of course. So that
>> 陈 is =E9=99=88, and so on.
>> 
>> I got this string by looking at a Vcard export from the Contacts app on
>> my Android phone. I'm trying to take an Emacs buffer and turn it into a
>> *.vcf card file to import into the same app -- basically I'm trying to
>> reverse-engineer the VCard encoding format so I can create a file to
>> feed to my phone.
>> 
>> I'm 99.9% sure that Emacs already comes with functions that will produce
>> my escaped coded string, but after many adventures with C-h f (during
>> which I learned quite a few unrelated tricks) I haven't found it. Can
>> someone enlighten me as to what the simplest way to do this is?

Hi Eli,

> Not sure what exactly are you looking for.  A wild guess is that

What I'm looking for, I guess, is this:

(mystery-function "陈”) --> "=E9=99=88"

>   (encode-coding-string 'utf-8 STRING)

(encode-coding-string "陈" 'utf-8) --> "\351\231\210"

So maybe what I need is a way to get from "\351\231\210" to "=E9=99=88"?

> and
>
>   (quoted-printable-encode-string STRING)

(quoted-printable-encode-string "陈")

Evalling the above gives me the message "Multibyte character in QP
encoding region"

Thanks,
Eric

Re: Encoding multibyte strings

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
> Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 15:40:31 +0800
> 
> > Not sure what exactly are you looking for.  A wild guess is that
> 
> What I'm looking for, I guess, is this:
> 
> (mystery-function "陈”) --> "=E9=99=88"
> 
> >   (encode-coding-string 'utf-8 STRING)
> 
> (encode-coding-string "陈" 'utf-8) --> "\351\231\210"
> 
> So maybe what I need is a way to get from "\351\231\210" to "=E9=99=88"?
> 
> > and
> >
> >   (quoted-printable-encode-string STRING)
> 
> (quoted-printable-encode-string "陈")
> 
> Evalling the above gives me the message "Multibyte character in QP
> encoding region"

I said "and", didn't I?

  (quoted-printable-encode-string (encode-coding-string "陈" 'utf-8))
   --> "=E9=99=88"

Re: Encoding multibyte strings

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
>> Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 15:40:31 +0800
>> 
>> > Not sure what exactly are you looking for.  A wild guess is that
>> 
>> What I'm looking for, I guess, is this:
>> 
>> (mystery-function "陈”) --> "=E9=99=88"
>> 
>> >   (encode-coding-string 'utf-8 STRING)
>> 
>> (encode-coding-string "陈" 'utf-8) --> "\351\231\210"
>> 
>> So maybe what I need is a way to get from "\351\231\210" to "=E9=99=88"?
>> 
>> > and
>> >
>> >   (quoted-printable-encode-string STRING)
>> 
>> (quoted-printable-encode-string "陈")
>> 
>> Evalling the above gives me the message "Multibyte character in QP
>> encoding region"
>
> I said "and", didn't I?
>
>   (quoted-printable-encode-string (encode-coding-string "陈" 'utf-8))
>    --> "=E9=99=88"

You did! And, as always, technically correct is the best kind of correct
:)

Thanks for this. Eventually I will soak up the appropriate knowledge
regarding string encoding, but it's taking a while.

Thanks again,
Eric

Re: Encoding multibyte strings

[B. T. Raven]

On 4/8/2016 02:28, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net>
>> Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2016 15:09:55 +0800
>>
>> I'm trying to get from this:
>>
>> 陈冬梅
>>
>> to this:
>>
>> CHARSET=UTF-8;ENCODING=QUOTED-PRINTABLE:=E9=99=88=E5=86=AC=E6=A2=85
>>
>> Assuming that the original characters were in utf-8, of course. So that
>> 陈 is =E9=99=88, and so on.
>>
>> I got this string by looking at a Vcard export from the Contacts app on
>> my Android phone. I'm trying to take an Emacs buffer and turn it into a
>> *.vcf card file to import into the same app -- basically I'm trying to
>> reverse-engineer the VCard encoding format so I can create a file to
>> feed to my phone.
>>
>> I'm 99.9% sure that Emacs already comes with functions that will produce
>> my escaped coded string, but after many adventures with C-h f (during
>> which I learned quite a few unrelated tricks) I haven't found it. Can
>> someone enlighten me as to what the simplest way to do this is?
>
> Not sure what exactly are you looking for.  A wild guess is that
>
>    (encode-coding-string 'utf-8 STRING)
>
> and
>
>    (quoted-printable-encode-string STRING)
>
> will do the job, IIUC.
>

(haxe-string-to-x-string "陈冬梅")

evaluated to this:

"\\xe9\\x99\\x88\\xe5\\x86\\xac\\xe6\\xa2\\x85"

that function and a discussion of the problem are here:


http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11085222/translate-unicode-utf-8-codepoint-to-bytes

hth,

Ed