Encoding for auto-save files

Encoding for auto-save files

[Kai Großjohann]

Emacs always uses emacs-mule for saving auto-save files.  In case a
user happens to use C-x C-f on an auto-save file, shouldn't Emacs use
emacs-mule, too?

I just made Emacs create an autosave file, then I said "emacs
~/#core#" and the file was displayed wrongly (I saw \216 escapes for
Latin-9 characters).

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE
> Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 17:47:10 +0200
> 
> Emacs always uses emacs-mule for saving auto-save files.  In case a
> user happens to use C-x C-f on an auto-save file, shouldn't Emacs use
> emacs-mule, too?

"M-x recover-file" already does that.

As for "C-x C-f", Emacs just treats #foo# as any other file, and does
its usual encoding-detection guesswork.  Since emacs-mule is very low
on the priority list of that guesswork, you almost always get
something that isn't emacs-mule.

However, if we are sure that files whose names match the pattern
"\\(\\`\\|/\\)#.+#\\'" are mostly Emacs auto-save files, I think
it's a good idea to add an appropriate association to
file-coding-system-alist defined on mule-conf.el.

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Kai Großjohann]

"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:

> However, if we are sure that files whose names match the pattern
> "\\(\\`\\|/\\)#.+#\\'" are mostly Emacs auto-save files, I think
> it's a good idea to add an appropriate association to
> file-coding-system-alist defined on mule-conf.el.

Yes, please.  What do people think?

I guess that C-x C-f on an autosave file is not an uncommon
operation.  After all, M-x recover-file RET and friends don't show me
the contents of the autosave file.

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Wed, 8 May 2002 Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE wrote:

> After all, M-x recover-file RET and friends don't show me
> the contents of the autosave file.

??? Of course they do: what do you think is that text you are looking at 
after M-x recover-file?

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Kai Großjohann]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@is.elta.co.il> writes:

> On Wed, 8 May 2002 Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE wrote:
>
>> After all, M-x recover-file RET and friends don't show me
>> the contents of the autosave file.
>
> ??? Of course they do: what do you think is that text you are looking at 
> after M-x recover-file?

Err.  I should express myself better.  I meant that with C-x C-f I can
compare the file with its autosave file.  M-x recover-file RET asks me
whether I want to recover a file, but doesn't show me the contents.

Or is there a feature I missed that will show me the differences
between a file and its autosave?  (Then I guess that Emacs and my
system are too stable: I recover files very very rarely. :-)

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Richard Stallman]

    Emacs always uses emacs-mule for saving auto-save files.  In case a
    user happens to use C-x C-f on an auto-save file, shouldn't Emacs use
    emacs-mule, too?

Yes, it should.  Would someone like to implement that in
set-auto-coding (mule.el)?

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     Emacs always uses emacs-mule for saving auto-save files.  In case a
>     user happens to use C-x C-f on an auto-save file, shouldn't Emacs use
>     emacs-mule, too?
>
> Yes, it should.  Would someone like to implement that in
> set-auto-coding (mule.el)?

Is it not enough to add an item to file-coding-system-alist?

(add-to-list 'file-coding-system-alist
             '("\\(\\`\\|/\\)#[^/]+#\\'" . emacs-mule))

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Richard Stallman]

If that change in file-coding-system-alist does the job, that method
is fine.  Please change it by editing the definition, not by calling
add-to-list.

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Kai Großjohann]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

> If that change in file-coding-system-alist does the job, that method
> is fine.  Please change it by editing the definition, not by calling
> add-to-list.

It seems that Emacs uses emacs-mule for auto-save files even if a
`coding:' tag is present in the file.  That means I should put the
pattern in auto-coding-alist instead of file-coding-system-alist.

Right?

kai
-- 
Silence is foo!

Re: Encoding for auto-save files

[Eli Zaretskii]

On Sun, 19 May 2002 Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE wrote:

> It seems that Emacs uses emacs-mule for auto-save files even if a
> `coding:' tag is present in the file.

True: auto-save files are always written in emacs-mule.

> That means I should put the
> pattern in auto-coding-alist instead of file-coding-system-alist.
> 
> Right?

Right.  Thanks.