Subject: Re: bug#24902: 25.1; C-x = for Unicode

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2022 12:00:31 +0100

Mattias Engdegård <[email-masked]> writes:

> What things would that be? The only ones I can think of are raw bytes
> and some control characters.

Yes, that's what I was thinking of.

> The only reason why C-x = shows octal is inertia. If you wrote the
> command today, you would not include octal.
>
> This is just another Immovable Ladder in Emacs. It must be preserved
> exactly as it is, for the sole reason that it has always been this
> way.

I never use octal myself and have configured Emacs to display raw bytes
as hex, so I agree with the first assertion.  But the latter isn't a
very friendly caricature.  The reason we don't remove all the octal
stuff from Emacs is that it'd annoy a significant number of people.

>> `C-x 8 e d' says what the name of the character is.  Perhaps it should
>> also include the hex value...
>
> Or perhaps we could improve the more commonly used and accessible `C-x
> =` to show both?
>
> I could write a patch to change it (with an option to keep the Good
> Old Times look for the traditionalist), but there's no point if it
> would be dismissed out of hand. Would it?

Making a format-spec thing for `C-x =' would be fine by me.

I don't understand the aggression here, though.

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