GNU Emacs 21.3.50 : Problem in (point-min)

GNU Emacs 21.3.50 : Problem in (point-min)

[Dhruva Krishnamurthy]

Hello,
 I am finding a strange behaviour in GNU Emacs 21.3.50 CVS (W2K using
 MinGW32)

When I evaluate:
(point-min), I get
1 = ?\C-a
instead of 1

Where as for (point-max), I get only the integer showing the number of
charecters in the buffer.
Am I doing something wrong?

with regards,
dhruva
-- 
Dhruva Krishnamurthy
Home: http://www32.brinkster.com/schemer/

Re: GNU Emacs 21.3.50 : Problem in (point-min)

[Benjamin Riefenstahl]

Hi Dhruva,


"Dhruva Krishnamurthy" <seagull@fastmail.fm> writes:
> When I evaluate:
> (point-min), I get
> 1 = ?\C-a
> instead of 1
>
> Where as for (point-max), I get only the integer showing the number of
> charecters in the buffer.

In think it is just a display issue.  Characters are just integers in
ELisp.  So for integers below 256, C-x C-e (eval-last-sexp) shows you
the character value, in case that is what you really wanted to know.
Try C-x C-e on the expression ?a (place the cursor on the trailing
space), to see what I mean.


Hope this helps, benny

Re: GNU Emacs 21.3.50 : Problem in (point-min)

[Markus Rost]

   In think it is just a display issue.  Characters are just integers in
   ELisp.  So for integers below 256, C-x C-e (eval-last-sexp) shows you
   the character value, in case that is what you really wanted to know.
   Try C-x C-e on the expression ?a (place the cursor on the trailing
   space), to see what I mean.

It happens for me also for other numbers.  I find it somewhat
irritating to see in the minibuffer once in a while various characters
from various international character sets.  It doesn't hurt much, but
it doesn't look clean.  Buffer position 97 has nothing to do with
character "a", so why showing "?a" in the minibuffer?  Here are some
examples with the corresponding messages in the minibuffer.

(goto-char 27643)
27643 = ?悍

(goto-char 27647)
27647 = ?悄

(goto-char 27649)
27649

By the way, when saving this mail, I was offered the following coding
system, apparently because of ?悍.

Coding system for saving this buffer:
  S -- shift_jis-unix (alias of japanese-shift-jis-unix)

Re: GNU Emacs 21.3.50 : Problem in (point-min)

[Kai Großjohann]

Markus Rost <rost@math.ohio-state.edu> writes:

> It happens for me also for other numbers.  I find it somewhat
> irritating to see in the minibuffer once in a while various characters
> from various international character sets.  It doesn't hurt much, but
> it doesn't look clean.  Buffer position 97 has nothing to do with
> character "a", so why showing "?a" in the minibuffer?

When Emacs prints the number, it doesn't know where it came from.  So
it just has to do what's possible.

(+ ?0 3) is probably meant to be the character ?3, so what about (+
48 3)?

Deciding when something is a character and when it isn't is
ai-complete.  Emacs is well on its way (M-x doctor RET), but just not
quite there, yet.
-- 
~/.signature

Re: GNU Emacs 21.3.50 : Problem in (point-min)

[Benjamin Riefenstahl]

Hi Markus,


Markus Rost <rost@math.ohio-state.edu> writes:
> It happens for me also for other numbers. 

Yes I see that now.  I didn't investigate the issue besides just
trying a few obvious numbers.  I should have tried more *characters*
instead, that's much more interesting ;-).

> Buffer position 97 has nothing to do with character "a", so why
> showing "?a" in the minibuffer? 

Yes, you know that and I know that.  But how is Emacs supposed to
know, when both are represented exactly the same?  Emacs could just
display the number only (as it did before, I think), but than you'd
have to figure out yourself what character is represented by
e.g. 2276, in case you use a function that returns a character.

You could argue that ELisp should use different types for characters
and integers.  But it doesn't, and I doubt that that is going to
change.

> By the way, when saving this mail, I was offered the following
> coding system, apparently because of ?悍.
>
> Coding system for saving this buffer:
>   S -- shift_jis-unix (alias of japanese-shift-jis-unix)

Sounds like a feature to me.  Otherwise you could have lost the
Japanese characters and/or I wouldn't have seen them here and I'd have
had to guess what you are seeing.


so long, benny

Re: GNU Emacs 21.3.50 : Problem in (point-min)

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

>>>>> "Kai" == Kai Großjohann <kai.grossjohann@gmx.net> writes:

    Kai> Deciding when something is a character and when it isn't is
    Kai> ai-complete.

It doesn't need to be.  Arguably, it shouldn't be.

-- 
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