utf-16

utf-16

[Dirk Zabel]

Hi,

I have a file with marker "# -*- utf-16 -*- in line 1.

How does emacs decide, wich coding system is used exactly if this file
is written? What I get is utf-16-be-with-signature. What I want is
utf-16-le-with-signature. Is there any variable which influences the
interpretation of "utf-16" ?

Regards
   Dirk

Re: utf-16

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Dirk Zabel <zabel@riccius-sohn.eu>
> Date: Fri, 16 May 2014 14:19:28 +0200
> 
> I have a file with marker "# -*- utf-16 -*- in line 1.
> 
> How does emacs decide, wich coding system is used exactly if this file
> is written? What I get is utf-16-be-with-signature. What I want is
> utf-16-le-with-signature. Is there any variable which influences the
> interpretation of "utf-16" ?

Just change that line to say "utf-16-le" instead.

Re: utf-16

[Stefan Monnier]

> I have a file with marker "# -*- utf-16 -*- in line 1.

[ This is a problematic case in itself: to read the "-*- utf-16 -*-" Emacs
  needs to know what byte-sequence represents, say, the character "u".
  But at that time (when decoding the file), it can't know yet that it
  will end up saying say "u" is encoded using utf-16.  ]

> Is there any variable which influences the interpretation of
> "utf-16" ?

General rule: don't use "-*- coding: utf-16 -*-".
Better use C-x RET f utf-16-le-with-signature RET before writing the file.


        Stefan