bug#27122: 26.0.50; [PATCH] Add customizable to display unprintables as hex

[Robert Cochran <robert+Emacs@cochranmail.com>]

Vasilij Schneidermann <v.schneidermann@gmail.com> writes:

> While this is unfortunate, I find it more instructive to look at it in
> terms of how much complexity is added (an extra conditional and a
> customizable), not how much lurks in the existing code.  If you
> constantly went by that argument, you would have to refrain from any
> kind of Emacs hacking given its impenetrable code base.

Agree with the sentiment, which is probably a better stated version of
what I tried to say earlier. The way I wrote it eariler glossed over the
details rather heavily. Apologies for that.

> The easiest way to solve this without adding any extra complexity would
> be simply replacing the format string by the hex one.  I wouldn't want
> to be involved in the ensuing discussion though...

IMO, this is the best solution. But the size that the ensuing discussion
would inenvitably grow to puts me off of this path as well. I was
initially thinking that the current behavior was more long-standing (10+
years), but it was actually introduced in its current form in 2010, in
d419e1d94 "Fix handling of 8-bit characters in a display table.". This
makes me more convinced that it should have been hex all along, given
the relative youth of the behavior, but no better time than the present
to change it, right?

--
~Robert Cochran

GPG Fingerprint - E778 2DD4 FEA6 6A68 6F26  AD2D E5C3 EB36 4886 8871