Subject: bug#3640: I can't see all characters in my files anymore

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:43:32 +0800

>>>>> "CY" == Chong Yidong <[email-masked]> writes:
>> Help, I'm now shipping files to people with all kinds of embedded junk
>> in them like
>> |        character: ‎ (8206, #o20016, #x200e)
>> |preferred charset: unicode (Unicode (ISO10646))
>> |       code point: 0x200E
>> |           syntax: . 	which means: punctuation
>> |      buffer code: #xE2 #x80 #x8E
>> |        file code: #xE2 #x80 #x8E (encoded by coding system utf-8-unix)
>> |          display: by this font (glyph code)
>> |    xft:-unknown-FreeSans-normal-normal-normal-*-16-*-*-*-*-0-iso10646-1 (#x8F1)
>> |
>> |Character code properties: customize what to show
>> |  name: LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK
>> |  general-category: Cf (Other, Format)
>> all because I can't see them anymore now that I use emacs23.

CY> Your font claims to be able to display character code 8206.  So, Emacs
CY> does not get in the way.  This is not a bug.

Yes and I'm sure it does display it properly: the proper way is to make
it disappear, as it is a special direction changing character and not a
normal character.

This is where emacs needs to step in and give the user a way to be aware
his file contains such things.

Just like whitespace mode makes one aware one has whitespace.

I'll see if whitespace.el will fill my needs...