Re: raw-text coding system confuses input method

[Stefan Daschek]

Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> writes:

>> *) Emacs shows the content of the file as "\205",
>>    describe-current-coding-system gives:
>>      Coding system for saving this buffer: t -- raw-text-unix
>> 
>> *) Activate input method with C-x RET C-\ rfc1345 RET
>> 
>> *) Enter mnemonic for "horizontal ellipsis": &.3
>> 
>> *) Emacs inserts a character thats surely not an ellipsis, it looks
>>    like | but with a gap in the middle. C-u C-x = on this character
>>    gives:
>> 
>>   character: ¦ (0246, 166, 0xa6)
>>     charset: eight-bit-graphic (8-bit graphic char (0xA0..0xFF))
>
> I'm not sure this is a bug: raw-text means the buffer is a unibyte
> buffer, so there can be no multibyte characters there.  In other
> words, there can be only unibyte characters in such a buffer.  It's a
> feature.

I'm not sure either, but it's certainly a confusing behaviour.


> What did you expect to happen instead?  Did you want Emacs to switch
> the buffer to a multibyte one, once you attempt to insert a multibyte
> character?

Hmm. I see that this is a problem but how about if Emacs would give a
warning message like when you try to save a file without a suitable
coding system? 


> For that matter, what is the real-world problem behind the sequence of
> events that you reported?  That is, why would one need to insert a
> unibyte character into a buffer and then add multibyte characters to
> that same buffer?

My .emacs file contained some \205 characters (not sure why, I got rid
of them in the meantime), and I was trying to input a horizontal
ellipsis using rfc1345 input method. It then took me quite a long time
to figure out why it didn't work as expected (I had to look up the
correct mnemonic for horizontal ellipsis to make sure I didn't make a
mistake and so on). I think it would have been really helpful if Emacs
had displayed a warning message when I tried to insert a multibyte
character.

ciao,
noniq