set-buffer-file-coding-system and list-coding-systems

[Xah Lee]

when i use “M-x set-buffer-file-coding-system RET unix” to turn a
file's line ending from classic mac or dos to unix. However, when i
use list-coding-systems, i see no value that is unix, mac, or dos.

I'm a bit confused by this, and the fact that emacs coding systems
seems to marry file encoding with line ending.

can anyone help me answer:

• why unix, mac, dos, is not listed in list-coding-systems. (more
specifically, when i “M-x set-buffer-file-coding-system RET unix”,
what's the “unix” there?)

• why emacs combine character set encoding with line ending
convention... or if there's a good info doc that explains this?

Thanks.

  Xah
  xah@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/

☄