GNU bug report logs - #9747
M-x untabify with "ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE" (aka "BYTE ORDER MARK")

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Message #8 received at 9747 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Juri Linkov <juri <at> jurta.org>
To: noloader <at> gmail.com
Cc: 9747 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#9747: C-x h TAB and M-x untabify
Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2011 02:32:14 +0300

> I often use C-x h TAB and M-x untabify to format C, C++, and Java code.
>
> If a document has an errant UTF-8 byte order mark (a UTF-8 BOM is EF
> BB BF), Emacs cannot always format the source file.
>
> For example, the attached Java file (JavaEncryptor.java-backup) has
> 1845 BOMs sprinkled throughout. I'm not sure what editor put them in,
> but Emacs does not properly handle some operations with them present.
> If I strip the errant BOMs with the attached program
> (efbbbf-strip.cpp), Emacs will properly format the file.

"BYTE ORDER MARK" is the old name of the U+FEFF character.
The new name is "ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE".

You can add to your .emacs something like:

(eval-after-load "cc-mode"
  '(progn (modify-syntax-entry ?\uFEFF " " java-mode-syntax-table)))

and the most of indentation code will work correctly.

However, in some places in core packages we need to replace such code

  (skip-chars-forward " \t")

with

  (skip-chars-forward " \t\uFEFF")

to take into account other whitespace characters.

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