Subject: Re: bug#23709: 24.5; inhibit-eol-conversion breaks archive-7z-summarize

From: Noam Postavsky <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2018 06:33:50 -0500

Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> writes:

>> It's a customizable user option. It seems perfectly valid to me to set
>> it globally, for the reasons given in the manual:
>> 
>>   some people prefer this to the more subtle '(DOS)' end-of-line type
>>   indication near the left edge of the mode line
>> 
>> I've had it set in my own .emacs for years, as it happens.
>
> I'm guessing this variable was made a defcustom under pressure from
> people who didn't want to see "(DOS)".

I think it's rather from people who *can't* see "(DOS)" (not literally
"can't", but find the indicator easy to miss).  I came across a post [1]
about this recently (the post itself is from 2016):

    Many versions ago, if you opened a dos-line-end file on Linux you
    would see the extra ^M codes. Now it automatically recognizes the
    situation and puts "DOS" in the info bar and hides the extra ^Ms.

    How can I exit "DOS" mode and switch back to Unix mode? How can I
    disable the auto-detection and force the files to be opened with
    Unix line endings and the DOS CR shown as ^M?

And a further comment from the OP about it:

    I guess there isn't really a compelling reason for it except that I
    only occasionally encounter dos files and I was used to that obvious
    visual cue of all the ^M's when I open one.

So this does sound like it's all about files.  If inhibit-eol-conversion
is problematic, maybe a setting for file-coding-system-alist would be a
better recommendation?

[1]: https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/24984/how-to-disable-automatic-dos-mode/38576