Re: gnus should accept UTF8 even if UTF-8 is standard

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 08:47:49 +0200 Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote: 

>> From: Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden>
>> It's a common usage, e.g. in locale names.  'UTF-8 is also common and
>> should be added.

EZ> It's common usage, allright, but it need not be added, because code
EZ> that gleans a coding-system from file metadata and email messages
EZ> should always downcase the encoding before intern-ing it.  If some
EZ> code doesn't downcase, that's a bug that needs to be fixed.

On Thu, 16 Oct 2008 13:32:11 +0900 "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden> 
wrote: 

SJT> It's intended to be a user convenience for typing to iconv and the
SJT> like.  It was introduced IIRC by glibc, comparing encoding names by
SJT> stripping out non-alphanumerics and canonicalizing case.  However,
SJT> internally Emacs should use the IANA registered names, and only use
SJT> aliases where one encoding has multiple names for some reason (are
SJT> there any?) or where one encoding is implemented as an alias to
SJT> another (binary and iso-8859-1-unix).

SJT> I agree that users should be allowed the convenience; this can be done
SJT> with a `read-mime-charset' or the like, which will determine what the
SJT> user wants and produce a canonical encoding name.  I see no good
SJT> reason for allowing it to programmers, who will probably spell it "u
SJT> M-/ 8" in any case.<wink>  If it's being seen in MIME headers, very
SJT> likely it's spam.  Responsible MUAs will use the names registered with
SJT> the IANA where available, but spammers tend to disregard RFCs the way
SJT> they disregard all other civilized usage.  Emacs should not emulate
SJT> them.

On Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:41:29 -0400 Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> wrote: 

>> BTW, is the uppercase variant useful?  AFAICS, it is the only
>> uppercase variant...

SM> I think neither variant is deserved.
SM> Such aliases aren't much use and they become annoying duplicates when
SM> listing coding systems.  I much prefer to add such things punctually
SM> where they're needed.  E.g. in mm-charset-synonym-alist.

OK, I've removed the aliases.  Thanks, everyone, for the helpful information.

Ted