From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Will Parsons Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: How to view raw text in Emacs? Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2018 22:57:44 -0400 Message-ID: References: <874lkpv5wa.fsf@moondust.localdomain> <87h8opjqro.fsf@bsb.me.uk> Reply-To: gyliamos@gmail.com NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1522983508 7223 195.159.176.226 (6 Apr 2018 02:58:28 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2018 02:58:28 +0000 (UTC) User-Agent: slrn/1.0.3 (FreeBSD) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Apr 06 04:58:23 2018 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1f4Ha0-0001hN-FK for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 06 Apr 2018 04:58:20 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:46765 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1f4Hc4-00025j-AY for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 05 Apr 2018 23:00:28 -0400 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help Original-Lines: 43 Original-X-Trace: individual.net QgjA+zX91/khVmACbkyjKQ04IpII9MBdsZLOunMMlXy5fmIv9W Cancel-Lock: sha1:umRYjHe7mYOIoo3y49M3Dl5+bko= Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:222244 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 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" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:116365 Archived-At: On Thursday, 5 Apr 2018 5:18 PM -0400, Ben Bacarisse wrote: > Alex Kost writes: > >> N. Jackson (2018-04-05 14:56 -0400) wrote: >> >>> Sometimes when I'm using Emacs I want to see "what's really there" >>> rather than the view of the text that Emacs is showing me. So far, I >>> have not figured out how to do this. Usually after casting about in >>> Emacs for a solution, the frustration builds sufficiently that I switch >>> to Kate of Gedit to see what I want to see. I would like to learn how to >>> do this in Emacs. >>> >>> For example, I open etc/enriched.txt. I realise that there is more there >>> than I'm seeing and am curious to see what is actually in the file. I >>> try `M-x fundamental-mode RET' which changes nothing. (I don't know why >>> I think it should, but that always seems to be what I try first.) Then I >>> see in the mode line that I'm in "Enriched" mode, so I try `M-x >>> enriched-mode RET' to turn it off, which does seem to turn it off (it's >>> nice that it's intuitive that way), but the view in the buffer doesn't >>> change. I try `M-x set-buffer-coding-system RET raw-text RET', but that >>> doesn't help either. I try `M-x set-buffer-coding-system RET >>> no-conversion RET', but again there is no apparent change. >>> >>> Clearly I'm missing something here, but I'm not sure what it is. Any >>> pointers would be welcome. >> >> Perhaps "M-x find-file-literally" is what you are looking for. > > A word of caution from this function's description > > If Emacs already has a buffer which is visiting the file, you > get the existing buffer, regardless of whether it was created > literally or not. > > And another option... Sometimes I find hexl-mode the right thing, > though it involves more learning because it's such a different kind of > view of the buffer. But, yes, if you *really* want to know what's in the buffer, then hexl-mode will give you that information. -- Will