Subject: Re: bug#20891: emacs: Back off if .doc is not an Office document

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 01 Aug 2019 22:53:19 +0200

[email-masked] writes:

> It is not uncommon for *.doc files to contain plain ASCII text. In this
> case, the default behavior of Emacs is less than ideal, as described in
> more detail in the problem report below. Perhaps the .doc file name
> mapping should contain some additional heuristics, and fall back to
> plain text if the file is not an Office document.

(I'm going through old bug reports that have unfortunately not gotten
any responses.)

I think this makes sense.  A fix in Emacs would mean moving the .doc
recognition from `auto-mode-alist' to...  `magic-fallback-mode-alist', I
guess.

According to the interwebs, the magic sequence for Word .doc files is:

D0 CF 11 E0 A1 B1 1A E1

Does anybody have an opinion here?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no