This is Info file ../../info/lispref.info, produced by Makeinfo version 1.68 from the input file lispref.texi. INFO-DIR-SECTION XEmacs Editor START-INFO-DIR-ENTRY * Lispref: (lispref). XEmacs Lisp Reference Manual. END-INFO-DIR-ENTRY Edition History: GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual Second Edition (v2.01), May 1993 GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual Further Revised (v2.02), August 1993 Lucid Emacs Lisp Reference Manual (for 19.10) First Edition, March 1994 XEmacs Lisp Programmer's Manual (for 19.12) Second Edition, April 1995 GNU Emacs Lisp Reference Manual v2.4, June 1995 XEmacs Lisp Programmer's Manual (for 19.13) Third Edition, July 1995 XEmacs Lisp Reference Manual (for 19.14 and 20.0) v3.1, March 1996 XEmacs Lisp Reference Manual (for 19.15 and 20.1, 20.2, 20.3) v3.2, April, May, November 1997 XEmacs Lisp Reference Manual (for 21.0) v3.3, April 1998 Copyright (C) 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Free Software Foundation, Inc. Copyright (C) 1994, 1995 Sun Microsystems, Inc. Copyright (C) 1995, 1996 Ben Wing. Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in a translation approved by the Foundation. Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the section entitled "GNU General Public License" is included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one. Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that the section entitled "GNU General Public License" may be included in a translation approved by the Free Software Foundation instead of in the original English.  File: lispref.info, Node: Level 3 Primitives, Next: Dynamic Messaging, Prev: Level 3 Basics, Up: I18N Level 3 Level 3 Primitives ------------------ - Function: gettext STRING This function looks up STRING in the default message domain and returns its translation. If `I18N3' was not enabled when XEmacs was compiled, it just returns STRING. - Function: dgettext DOMAIN STRING This function looks up STRING in the specified message domain and returns its translation. If `I18N3' was not enabled when XEmacs was compiled, it just returns STRING. - Function: bind-text-domain DOMAIN PATHNAME This function associates a pathname with a message domain. Here's how the path to message file is constructed under SunOS 5.x: `{pathname}/{LANG}/LC_MESSAGES/{domain}.mo' If `I18N3' was not enabled when XEmacs was compiled, this function does nothing. - Special Form: domain STRING This function specifies the text domain used for translating documentation strings and interactive prompts of a function. For example, write: (defun foo (arg) "Doc string" (domain "emacs-foo") ...) to specify `emacs-foo' as the text domain of the function `foo'. The "call" to `domain' is actually a declaration rather than a function; when actually called, `domain' just returns `nil'. - Function: domain-of FUNCTION This function returns the text domain of FUNCTION; it returns `nil' if it is the default domain. If `I18N3' was not enabled when XEmacs was compiled, it always returns `nil'.  File: lispref.info, Node: Dynamic Messaging, Next: Domain Specification, Prev: Level 3 Primitives, Up: I18N Level 3 Dynamic Messaging ----------------- The `format' function has been extended to permit you to change the order of parameter insertion. For example, the conversion format `%1$s' inserts parameter one as a string, while `%2$s' inserts parameter two. This is useful when creating translations which require you to change the word order.  File: lispref.info, Node: Domain Specification, Next: Documentation String Extraction, Prev: Dynamic Messaging, Up: I18N Level 3 Domain Specification -------------------- The default message domain of XEmacs is `emacs'. For add-on packages, it is best to use a different domain. For example, let us say we want to convert the "gorilla" package to use the domain `emacs-gorilla'. To translate the message "What gorilla?", use `dgettext' as follows: (dgettext "emacs-gorilla" "What gorilla?") A function (or macro) which has a documentation string or an interactive prompt needs to be associated with the domain in order for the documentation or prompt to be translated. This is done with the `domain' special form as follows: (defun scratch (location) "Scratch the specified location." (domain "emacs-gorilla") (interactive "sScratch: ") ... ) It is most efficient to specify the domain in the first line of the function body, before the `interactive' form. For variables and constants which have documentation strings, specify the domain after the documentation. - Special Form: defvar SYMBOL [VALUE [DOC-STRING [DOMAIN]]] Example: (defvar weight 250 "Weight of gorilla, in pounds." "emacs-gorilla") - Special Form: defconst SYMBOL [VALUE [DOC-STRING [DOMAIN]]] Example: (defconst limbs 4 "Number of limbs" "emacs-gorilla") Autoloaded functions which are specified in `loaddefs.el' do not need to have a domain specification, because their documentation strings are extracted into the main message base. However, for autoloaded functions which are specified in a separate package, use following syntax: - Function: autoload SYMBOL FILENAME &optional DOCSTRING INTERACTIVE MACRO DOMAIN Example: (autoload 'explore "jungle" "Explore the jungle." nil nil "emacs-gorilla")  File: lispref.info, Node: Documentation String Extraction, Prev: Domain Specification, Up: I18N Level 3 Documentation String Extraction ------------------------------- The utility `etc/make-po' scans the file `DOC' to extract documentation strings and creates a message file `doc.po'. This file may then be inserted within `emacs.po'. Currently, `make-po' is hard-coded to read from `DOC' and write to `doc.po'. In order to extract documentation strings from an add-on package, first run `make-docfile' on the package to produce the `DOC' file. Then run `make-po -p' with the `-p' argument to indicate that we are extracting documentation for an add-on package. (The `-p' argument is a kludge to make up for a subtle difference between pre-loaded documentation and add-on documentation: For add-on packages, the final carriage returns in the strings produced by `make-docfile' must be ignored.)  File: lispref.info, Node: I18N Level 4, Prev: I18N Level 3, Up: Internationalization I18N Level 4 ============ The Asian-language support in XEmacs is called "MULE". *Note MULE::.  File: lispref.info, Node: MULE, Next: Tips, Prev: Internationalization, Up: Top MULE **** "MULE" is the name originally given to the version of GNU Emacs extended for multi-lingual (and in particular Asian-language) support. "MULE" is short for "MUlti-Lingual Emacs". It was originally called Nemacs ("Nihon Emacs" where "Nihon" is the Japanese word for "Japan"), when it only provided support for Japanese. XEmacs refers to its multi-lingual support as "MULE support" since it is based on "MULE". * Menu: * Internationalization Terminology:: Definition of various internationalization terms. * Charsets:: Sets of related characters. * MULE Characters:: Working with characters in XEmacs/MULE. * Composite Characters:: Making new characters by overstriking other ones. * ISO 2022:: An international standard for charsets and encodings. * Coding Systems:: Ways of representing a string of chars using integers. * CCL:: A special language for writing fast converters. * Category Tables:: Subdividing charsets into groups.  File: lispref.info, Node: Internationalization Terminology, Next: Charsets, Up: MULE Internationalization Terminology ================================ In internationalization terminology, a string of text is divided up into "characters", which are the printable units that make up the text. A single character is (for example) a capital `A', the number `2', a Katakana character, a Kanji ideograph (an "ideograph" is a "picture" character, such as is used in Japanese Kanji, Chinese Hanzi, and Korean Hangul; typically there are thousands of such ideographs in each language), etc. The basic property of a character is its shape. Note that the same character may be drawn by two different people (or in two different fonts) in slightly different ways, although the basic shape will be the same. In some cases, the differences will be significant enough that it is actually possible to identify two or more distinct shapes that both represent the same character. For example, the lowercase letters `a' and `g' each have two distinct possible shapes - the `a' can optionally have a curved tail projecting off the top, and the `g' can be formed either of two loops, or of one loop and a tail hanging off the bottom. Such distinct possible shapes of a character are called "glyphs". The important characteristic of two glyphs making up the same character is that the choice between one or the other is purely stylistic and has no linguistic effect on a word (this is the reason why a capital `A' and lowercase `a' are different characters rather than different glyphs - e.g. `Aspen' is a city while `aspen' is a kind of tree). Note that "character" and "glyph" are used differently here than elsewhere in XEmacs. A "character set" is simply a set of related characters. ASCII, for example, is a set of 94 characters (or 128, if you count non-printing characters). Other character sets are ISO8859-1 (ASCII plus various accented characters and other international symbols), JISX0201 (ASCII, more or less, plus half-width Katakana), JISX0208 (Japanese Kanji), JISX0212 (a second set of less-used Japanese Kanji), GB2312 (Mainland Chinese Hanzi), etc. Every character set has one or more "orderings", which can be viewed as a way of assigning a number (or set of numbers) to each character in the set. For most character sets, there is a standard ordering, and in fact all of the character sets mentioned above define a particular ordering. ASCII, for example, places letters in their "natural" order, puts uppercase letters before lowercase letters, numbers before letters, etc. Note that for many of the Asian character sets, there is no natural ordering of the characters. The actual orderings are based on one or more salient characteristic, of which there are many to choose from - e.g. number of strokes, common radicals, phonetic ordering, etc. The set of numbers assigned to any particular character are called the character's "position codes". The number of position codes required to index a particular character in a character set is called the "dimension" of the character set. ASCII, being a relatively small character set, is of dimension one, and each character in the set is indexed using a single position code, in the range 0 through 127 (if non-printing characters are included) or 33 through 126 (if only the printing characters are considered). JISX0208, i.e. Japanese Kanji, has thousands of characters, and is of dimension two - every character is indexed by two position codes, each in the range 33 through 126. (Note that the choice of the range here is somewhat arbitrary. Although a character set such as JISX0208 defines an *ordering* of all its characters, it does not define the actual mapping between numbers and characters. You could just as easily index the characters in JISX0208 using numbers in the range 0 through 93, 1 through 94, 2 through 95, etc. The reason for the actual range chosen is so that the position codes match up with the actual values used in the common encodings.) An "encoding" is a way of numerically representing characters from one or more character sets into a stream of like-sized numerical values called "words"; typically these are 8-bit, 16-bit, or 32-bit quantities. If an encoding encompasses only one character set, then the position codes for the characters in that character set could be used directly. (This is the case with ASCII, and as a result, most people do not understand the difference between a character set and an encoding.) This is not possible, however, if more than one character set is to be used in the encoding. For example, printed Japanese text typically requires characters from multiple character sets - ASCII, JISX0208, and JISX0212, to be specific. Each of these is indexed using one or more position codes in the range 33 through 126, so the position codes could not be used directly or there would be no way to tell which character was meant. Different Japanese encodings handle this differently - JIS uses special escape characters to denote different character sets; EUC sets the high bit of the position codes for JISX0208 and JISX0212, and puts a special extra byte before each JISX0212 character; etc. (JIS, EUC, and most of the other encodings you will encounter are 7-bit or 8-bit encodings. There is one common 16-bit encoding, which is Unicode; this strives to represent all the world's characters in a single large character set. 32-bit encodings are generally used internally in programs to simplify the code that manipulates them; however, they are not much used externally because they are not very space-efficient.) Encodings are classified as either "modal" or "non-modal". In a "modal encoding", there are multiple states that the encoding can be in, and the interpretation of the values in the stream depends on the current global state of the encoding. Special values in the encoding, called "escape sequences", are used to change the global state. JIS, for example, is a modal encoding. The bytes `ESC $ B' indicate that, from then on, bytes are to be interpreted as position codes for JISX0208, rather than as ASCII. This effect is cancelled using the bytes `ESC ( B', which mean "switch from whatever the current state is to ASCII". To switch to JISX0212, the escape sequence `ESC $ ( D'. (Note that here, as is common, the escape sequences do in fact begin with `ESC'. This is not necessarily the case, however.) A "non-modal encoding" has no global state that extends past the character currently being interpreted. EUC, for example, is a non-modal encoding. Characters in JISX0208 are encoded by setting the high bit of the position codes, and characters in JISX0212 are encoded by doing the same but also prefixing the character with the byte 0x8F. The advantage of a modal encoding is that it is generally more space-efficient, and is easily extendable because there are essentially an arbitrary number of escape sequences that can be created. The disadvantage, however, is that it is much more difficult to work with if it is not being processed in a sequential manner. In the non-modal EUC encoding, for example, the byte 0x41 always refers to the letter `A'; whereas in JIS, it could either be the letter `A', or one of the two position codes in a JISX0208 character, or one of the two position codes in a JISX0212 character. Determining exactly which one is meant could be difficult and time-consuming if the previous bytes in the string have not already been processed. Non-modal encodings are further divided into "fixed-width" and "variable-width" formats. A fixed-width encoding always uses the same number of words per character, whereas a variable-width encoding does not. EUC is a good example of a variable-width encoding: one to three bytes are used per character, depending on the character set. 16-bit and 32-bit encodings are nearly always fixed-width, and this is in fact one of the main reasons for using an encoding with a larger word size. The advantages of fixed-width encodings should be obvious. The advantages of variable-width encodings are that they are generally more space-efficient and allow for compatibility with existing 8-bit encodings such as ASCII. Note that the bytes in an 8-bit encoding are often referred to as "octets" rather than simply as bytes. This terminology dates back to the days before 8-bit bytes were universal, when some computers had 9-bit bytes, others had 10-bit bytes, etc.  File: lispref.info, Node: Charsets, Next: MULE Characters, Prev: Internationalization Terminology, Up: MULE Charsets ======== A "charset" in MULE is an object that encapsulates a particular character set as well as an ordering of those characters. Charsets are permanent objects and are named using symbols, like faces. - Function: charsetp OBJECT This function returns non-`nil' if OBJECT is a charset. * Menu: * Charset Properties:: Properties of a charset. * Basic Charset Functions:: Functions for working with charsets. * Charset Property Functions:: Functions for accessing charset properties. * Predefined Charsets:: Predefined charset objects.  File: lispref.info, Node: Charset Properties, Next: Basic Charset Functions, Up: Charsets Charset Properties ------------------ Charsets have the following properties: `name' A symbol naming the charset. Every charset must have a different name; this allows a charset to be referred to using its name rather than the actual charset object. `doc-string' A documentation string describing the charset. `registry' A regular expression matching the font registry field for this character set. For example, both the `ascii' and `latin-iso8859-1' charsets use the registry `"ISO8859-1"'. This field is used to choose an appropriate font when the user gives a general font specification such as `-*-courier-medium-r-*-140-*', i.e. a 14-point upright medium-weight Courier font. `dimension' Number of position codes used to index a character in the character set. XEmacs/MULE can only handle character sets of dimension 1 or 2. This property defaults to 1. `chars' Number of characters in each dimension. In XEmacs/MULE, the only allowed values are 94 or 96. (There are a couple of pre-defined character sets, such as ASCII, that do not follow this, but you cannot define new ones like this.) Defaults to 94. Note that if the dimension is 2, the character set thus described is 94x94 or 96x96. `columns' Number of columns used to display a character in this charset. Only used in TTY mode. (Under X, the actual width of a character can be derived from the font used to display the characters.) If unspecified, defaults to the dimension. (This is almost always the correct value, because character sets with dimension 2 are usually ideograph character sets, which need two columns to display the intricate ideographs.) `direction' A symbol, either `l2r' (left-to-right) or `r2l' (right-to-left). Defaults to `l2r'. This specifies the direction that the text should be displayed in, and will be left-to-right for most charsets but right-to-left for Hebrew and Arabic. (Right-to-left display is not currently implemented.) `final' Final byte of the standard ISO 2022 escape sequence designating this charset. Must be supplied. Each combination of (DIMENSION, CHARS) defines a separate namespace for final bytes, and each charset within a particular namespace must have a different final byte. Note that ISO 2022 restricts the final byte to the range 0x30 - 0x7E if dimension == 1, and 0x30 - 0x5F if dimension == 2. Note also that final bytes in the range 0x30 - 0x3F are reserved for user-defined (not official) character sets. For more information on ISO 2022, see *Note Coding Systems::. `graphic' 0 (use left half of font on output) or 1 (use right half of font on output). Defaults to 0. This specifies how to convert the position codes that index a character in a character set into an index into the font used to display the character set. With `graphic' set to 0, position codes 33 through 126 map to font indices 33 through 126; with it set to 1, position codes 33 through 126 map to font indices 161 through 254 (i.e. the same number but with the high bit set). For example, for a font whose registry is ISO8859-1, the left half of the font (octets 0x20 - 0x7F) is the `ascii' charset, while the right half (octets 0xA0 - 0xFF) is the `latin-iso8859-1' charset. `ccl-program' A compiled CCL program used to convert a character in this charset into an index into the font. This is in addition to the `graphic' property. If a CCL program is defined, the position codes of a character will first be processed according to `graphic' and then passed through the CCL program, with the resulting values used to index the font. This is used, for example, in the Big5 character set (used in Taiwan). This character set is not ISO-2022-compliant, and its size (94x157) does not fit within the maximum 96x96 size of ISO-2022-compliant character sets. As a result, XEmacs/MULE splits it (in a rather complex fashion, so as to group the most commonly used characters together) into two charset objects (`big5-1' and `big5-2'), each of size 94x94, and each charset object uses a CCL program to convert the modified position codes back into standard Big5 indices to retrieve a character from a Big5 font. Most of the above properties can only be changed when the charset is created. *Note Charset Property Functions::.  File: lispref.info, Node: Basic Charset Functions, Next: Charset Property Functions, Prev: Charset Properties, Up: Charsets Basic Charset Functions ----------------------- - Function: find-charset CHARSET-OR-NAME This function retrieves the charset of the given name. If CHARSET-OR-NAME is a charset object, it is simply returned. Otherwise, CHARSET-OR-NAME should be a symbol. If there is no such charset, `nil' is returned. Otherwise the associated charset object is returned. - Function: get-charset NAME This function retrieves the charset of the given name. Same as `find-charset' except an error is signalled if there is no such charset instead of returning `nil'. - Function: charset-list This function returns a list of the names of all defined charsets. - Function: make-charset NAME DOC-STRING PROPS This function defines a new character set. This function is for use with Mule support. NAME is a symbol, the name by which the character set is normally referred. DOC-STRING is a string describing the character set. PROPS is a property list, describing the specific nature of the character set. The recognized properties are `registry', `dimension', `columns', `chars', `final', `graphic', `direction', and `ccl-program', as previously described. - Function: make-reverse-direction-charset CHARSET NEW-NAME This function makes a charset equivalent to CHARSET but which goes in the opposite direction. NEW-NAME is the name of the new charset. The new charset is returned. - Function: charset-from-attributes DIMENSION CHARS FINAL &optional DIRECTION This function returns a charset with the given DIMENSION, CHARS, FINAL, and DIRECTION. If DIRECTION is omitted, both directions will be checked (left-to-right will be returned if character sets exist for both directions). - Function: charset-reverse-direction-charset CHARSET This function returns the charset (if any) with the same dimension, number of characters, and final byte as CHARSET, but which is displayed in the opposite direction.  File: lispref.info, Node: Charset Property Functions, Next: Predefined Charsets, Prev: Basic Charset Functions, Up: Charsets Charset Property Functions -------------------------- All of these functions accept either a charset name or charset object. - Function: charset-property CHARSET PROP This function returns property PROP of CHARSET. *Note Charset Properties::. Convenience functions are also provided for retrieving individual properties of a charset. - Function: charset-name CHARSET This function returns the name of CHARSET. This will be a symbol. - Function: charset-doc-string CHARSET This function returns the doc string of CHARSET. - Function: charset-registry CHARSET This function returns the registry of CHARSET. - Function: charset-dimension CHARSET This function returns the dimension of CHARSET. - Function: charset-chars CHARSET This function returns the number of characters per dimension of CHARSET. - Function: charset-columns CHARSET This function returns the number of display columns per character (in TTY mode) of CHARSET. - Function: charset-direction CHARSET This function returns the display direction of CHARSET - either `l2r' or `r2l'. - Function: charset-final CHARSET This function returns the final byte of the ISO 2022 escape sequence designating CHARSET. - Function: charset-graphic CHARSET This function returns either 0 or 1, depending on whether the position codes of characters in CHARSET map to the left or right half of their font, respectively. - Function: charset-ccl-program CHARSET This function returns the CCL program, if any, for converting position codes of characters in CHARSET into font indices. The only property of a charset that can currently be set after the charset has been created is the CCL program. - Function: set-charset-ccl-program CHARSET CCL-PROGRAM This function sets the `ccl-program' property of CHARSET to CCL-PROGRAM.  File: lispref.info, Node: Predefined Charsets, Prev: Charset Property Functions, Up: Charsets Predefined Charsets ------------------- The following charsets are predefined in the C code. Name Type Fi Gr Dir Registry -------------------------------------------------------------- ascii 94 B 0 l2r ISO8859-1 control-1 94 0 l2r --- latin-iso8859-1 94 A 1 l2r ISO8859-1 latin-iso8859-2 96 B 1 l2r ISO8859-2 latin-iso8859-3 96 C 1 l2r ISO8859-3 latin-iso8859-4 96 D 1 l2r ISO8859-4 cyrillic-iso8859-5 96 L 1 l2r ISO8859-5 arabic-iso8859-6 96 G 1 r2l ISO8859-6 greek-iso8859-7 96 F 1 l2r ISO8859-7 hebrew-iso8859-8 96 H 1 r2l ISO8859-8 latin-iso8859-9 96 M 1 l2r ISO8859-9 thai-tis620 96 T 1 l2r TIS620 katakana-jisx0201 94 I 1 l2r JISX0201.1976 latin-jisx0201 94 J 0 l2r JISX0201.1976 japanese-jisx0208-1978 94x94 @ 0 l2r JISX0208.1978 japanese-jisx0208 94x94 B 0 l2r JISX0208.19(83|90) japanese-jisx0212 94x94 D 0 l2r JISX0212 chinese-gb2312 94x94 A 0 l2r GB2312 chinese-cns11643-1 94x94 G 0 l2r CNS11643.1 chinese-cns11643-2 94x94 H 0 l2r CNS11643.2 chinese-big5-1 94x94 0 0 l2r Big5 chinese-big5-2 94x94 1 0 l2r Big5 korean-ksc5601 94x94 C 0 l2r KSC5601 composite 96x96 0 l2r --- The following charsets are predefined in the Lisp code. Name Type Fi Gr Dir Registry -------------------------------------------------------------- arabic-digit 94 2 0 l2r MuleArabic-0 arabic-1-column 94 3 0 r2l MuleArabic-1 arabic-2-column 94 4 0 r2l MuleArabic-2 sisheng 94 0 0 l2r sisheng_cwnn\|OMRON_UDC_ZH chinese-cns11643-3 94x94 I 0 l2r CNS11643.1 chinese-cns11643-4 94x94 J 0 l2r CNS11643.1 chinese-cns11643-5 94x94 K 0 l2r CNS11643.1 chinese-cns11643-6 94x94 L 0 l2r CNS11643.1 chinese-cns11643-7 94x94 M 0 l2r CNS11643.1 ethiopic 94x94 2 0 l2r Ethio ascii-r2l 94 B 0 r2l ISO8859-1 ipa 96 0 1 l2r MuleIPA vietnamese-lower 96 1 1 l2r VISCII1.1 vietnamese-upper 96 2 1 l2r VISCII1.1 For all of the above charsets, the dimension and number of columns are the same. Note that ASCII, Control-1, and Composite are handled specially. This is why some of the fields are blank; and some of the filled-in fields (e.g. the type) are not really accurate.  File: lispref.info, Node: MULE Characters, Next: Composite Characters, Prev: Charsets, Up: MULE MULE Characters =============== - Function: make-char CHARSET ARG1 &optional ARG2 This function makes a multi-byte character from CHARSET and octets ARG1 and ARG2. - Function: char-charset CH This function returns the character set of char CH. - Function: char-octet CH &optional N This function returns the octet (i.e. position code) numbered N (should be 0 or 1) of char CH. N defaults to 0 if omitted. - Function: find-charset-region START END &optional BUFFER This function returns a list of the charsets in the region between START and END. BUFFER defaults to the current buffer if omitted. - Function: find-charset-string STRING This function returns a list of the charsets in STRING.  File: lispref.info, Node: Composite Characters, Next: ISO 2022, Prev: MULE Characters, Up: MULE Composite Characters ==================== Composite characters are not yet completely implemented. - Function: make-composite-char STRING This function converts a string into a single composite character. The character is the result of overstriking all the characters in the string. - Function: composite-char-string CH This function returns a string of the characters comprising a composite character. - Function: compose-region START END &optional BUFFER This function composes the characters in the region from START to END in BUFFER into one composite character. The composite character replaces the composed characters. BUFFER defaults to the current buffer if omitted. - Function: decompose-region START END &optional BUFFER This function decomposes any composite characters in the region from START to END in BUFFER. This converts each composite character into one or more characters, the individual characters out of which the composite character was formed. Non-composite characters are left as-is. BUFFER defaults to the current buffer if omitted.  File: lispref.info, Node: ISO 2022, Next: Coding Systems, Prev: Composite Characters, Up: MULE ISO 2022 ======== This section briefly describes the ISO 2022 encoding standard. For more thorough understanding, please refer to the original document of ISO 2022. Character sets ("charsets") are classified into the following four categories, according to the number of characters of charset: 94-charset, 96-charset, 94x94-charset, and 96x96-charset. 94-charset ASCII(B), left(J) and right(I) half of JISX0201, ... 96-charset Latin-1(A), Latin-2(B), Latin-3(C), ... 94x94-charset GB2312(A), JISX0208(B), KSC5601(C), ... 96x96-charset none for the moment The character in parentheses after the name of each charset is the "final character" F, which can be regarded as the identifier of the charset. ECMA allocates F to each charset. F is in the range of 0x30..0x7F, but 0x30..0x3F are only for private use. Note: "ECMA" = European Computer Manufacturers Association There are four "registers of charsets", called G0 thru G3. You can designate (or assign) any charset to one of these registers. The code space contained within one octet (of size 256) is divided into 4 areas: C0, GL, C1, and GR. GL and GR are the areas into which a register of charset can be invoked into. C0: 0x00 - 0x1F GL: 0x20 - 0x7F C1: 0x80 - 0x9F GR: 0xA0 - 0xFF Usually, in the initial state, G0 is invoked into GL, and G1 is invoked into GR. ISO 2022 distinguishes 7-bit environments and 8-bit environments. In 7-bit environments, only C0 and GL are used. Charset designation is done by escape sequences of the form: ESC [I] I F where I is an intermediate character in the range 0x20 - 0x2F, and F is the final character identifying this charset. The meaning of intermediate characters are: $ [0x24]: indicate charset of dimension 2 (94x94 or 96x96). ( [0x28]: designate to G0 a 94-charset whose final byte is F. ) [0x29]: designate to G1 a 94-charset whose final byte is F. * [0x2A]: designate to G2 a 94-charset whose final byte is F. + [0x2B]: designate to G3 a 94-charset whose final byte is F. - [0x2D]: designate to G1 a 96-charset whose final byte is F. . [0x2E]: designate to G2 a 96-charset whose final byte is F. / [0x2F]: designate to G3 a 96-charset whose final byte is F. The following rule is not allowed in ISO 2022 but can be used in Mule. , [0x2C]: designate to G0 a 96-charset whose final byte is F. Here are examples of designations: ESC ( B : designate to G0 ASCII ESC - A : designate to G1 Latin-1 ESC $ ( A or ESC $ A : designate to G0 GB2312 ESC $ ( B or ESC $ B : designate to G0 JISX0208 ESC $ ) C : designate to G1 KSC5601 To use a charset designated to G2 or G3, and to use a charset designated to G1 in a 7-bit environment, you must explicitly invoke G1, G2, or G3 into GL. There are two types of invocation, Locking Shift (forever) and Single Shift (one character only). Locking Shift is done as follows: LS0 or SI (0x0F): invoke G0 into GL LS1 or SO (0x0E): invoke G1 into GL LS2: invoke G2 into GL LS3: invoke G3 into GL LS1R: invoke G1 into GR LS2R: invoke G2 into GR LS3R: invoke G3 into GR Single Shift is done as follows: SS2 or ESC N: invoke G2 into GL SS3 or ESC O: invoke G3 into GL (#### Ben says: I think the above is slightly incorrect. It appears that SS2 invokes G2 into GR and SS3 invokes G3 into GR, whereas ESC N and ESC O behave as indicated. The above definitions will not parse EUC-encoded text correctly, and it looks like the code in mule-coding.c has similar problems.) You may realize that there are a lot of ISO-2022-compliant ways of encoding multilingual text. Now, in the world, there exist many coding systems such as X11's Compound Text, Japanese JUNET code, and so-called EUC (Extended UNIX Code); all of these are variants of ISO 2022. In Mule, we characterize ISO 2022 by the following attributes: 1. Initial designation to G0 thru G3. 2. Allow designation of short form for Japanese and Chinese. 3. Should we designate ASCII to G0 before control characters? 4. Should we designate ASCII to G0 at the end of line? 5. 7-bit environment or 8-bit environment. 6. Use Locking Shift or not. 7. Use ASCII or JIS0201-1976-Roman. 8. Use JISX0208-1983 or JISX0208-1976. (The last two are only for Japanese.) By specifying these attributes, you can create any variant of ISO 2022. Here are several examples: junet -- Coding system used in JUNET. 1. G0 <- ASCII, G1..3 <- never used 2. Yes. 3. Yes. 4. Yes. 5. 7-bit environment 6. No. 7. Use ASCII 8. Use JISX0208-1983 ctext -- Compound Text 1. G0 <- ASCII, G1 <- Latin-1, G2,3 <- never used 2. No. 3. No. 4. Yes. 5. 8-bit environment 6. No. 7. Use ASCII 8. Use JISX0208-1983 euc-china -- Chinese EUC. Although many people call this as "GB encoding", the name may cause misunderstanding. 1. G0 <- ASCII, G1 <- GB2312, G2,3 <- never used 2. No. 3. Yes. 4. Yes. 5. 8-bit environment 6. No. 7. Use ASCII 8. Use JISX0208-1983 korean-mail -- Coding system used in Korean network. 1. G0 <- ASCII, G1 <- KSC5601, G2,3 <- never used 2. No. 3. Yes. 4. Yes. 5. 7-bit environment 6. Yes. 7. No. 8. No. Mule creates all these coding systems by default.  File: lispref.info, Node: Coding Systems, Next: CCL, Prev: ISO 2022, Up: MULE Coding Systems ============== A coding system is an object that defines how text containing multiple character sets is encoded into a stream of (typically 8-bit) bytes. The coding system is used to decode the stream into a series of characters (which may be from multiple charsets) when the text is read from a file or process, and is used to encode the text back into the same format when it is written out to a file or process. For example, many ISO-2022-compliant coding systems (such as Compound Text, which is used for inter-client data under the X Window System) use escape sequences to switch between different charsets - Japanese Kanji, for example, is invoked with `ESC $ ( B'; ASCII is invoked with `ESC ( B'; and Cyrillic is invoked with `ESC - L'. See `make-coding-system' for more information. Coding systems are normally identified using a symbol, and the symbol is accepted in place of the actual coding system object whenever a coding system is called for. (This is similar to how faces and charsets work.) - Function: coding-system-p OBJECT This function returns non-`nil' if OBJECT is a coding system. * Menu: * Coding System Types:: Classifying coding systems. * EOL Conversion:: Dealing with different ways of denoting the end of a line. * Coding System Properties:: Properties of a coding system. * Basic Coding System Functions:: Working with coding systems. * Coding System Property Functions:: Retrieving a coding system's properties. * Encoding and Decoding Text:: Encoding and decoding text. * Detection of Textual Encoding:: Determining how text is encoded. * Big5 and Shift-JIS Functions:: Special functions for these non-standard encodings.  File: lispref.info, Node: Coding System Types, Next: EOL Conversion, Up: Coding Systems Coding System Types ------------------- `nil' `autodetect' Automatic conversion. XEmacs attempts to detect the coding system used in the file. `no-conversion' No conversion. Use this for binary files and such. On output, graphic characters that are not in ASCII or Latin-1 will be replaced by a `?'. (For a no-conversion-encoded buffer, these characters will only be present if you explicitly insert them.) `shift-jis' Shift-JIS (a Japanese encoding commonly used in PC operating systems). `iso2022' Any ISO-2022-compliant encoding. Among other things, this includes JIS (the Japanese encoding commonly used for e-mail), national variants of EUC (the standard Unix encoding for Japanese and other languages), and Compound Text (an encoding used in X11). You can specify more specific information about the conversion with the FLAGS argument. `big5' Big5 (the encoding commonly used for Taiwanese). `ccl' The conversion is performed using a user-written pseudo-code program. CCL (Code Conversion Language) is the name of this pseudo-code. `internal' Write out or read in the raw contents of the memory representing the buffer's text. This is primarily useful for debugging purposes, and is only enabled when XEmacs has been compiled with `DEBUG_XEMACS' set (the `--debug' configure option). *Warning*: Reading in a file using `internal' conversion can result in an internal inconsistency in the memory representing a buffer's text, which will produce unpredictable results and may cause XEmacs to crash. Under normal circumstances you should never use `internal' conversion.  File: lispref.info, Node: EOL Conversion, Next: Coding System Properties, Prev: Coding System Types, Up: Coding Systems EOL Conversion -------------- `nil' Automatically detect the end-of-line type (LF, CRLF, or CR). Also generate subsidiary coding systems named `NAME-unix', `NAME-dos', and `NAME-mac', that are identical to this coding system but have an EOL-TYPE value of `lf', `crlf', and `cr', respectively. `lf' The end of a line is marked externally using ASCII LF. Since this is also the way that XEmacs represents an end-of-line internally, specifying this option results in no end-of-line conversion. This is the standard format for Unix text files. `crlf' The end of a line is marked externally using ASCII CRLF. This is the standard format for MS-DOS text files. `cr' The end of a line is marked externally using ASCII CR. This is the standard format for Macintosh text files. `t' Automatically detect the end-of-line type but do not generate subsidiary coding systems. (This value is converted to `nil' when stored internally, and `coding-system-property' will return `nil'.)  File: lispref.info, Node: Coding System Properties, Next: Basic Coding System Functions, Prev: EOL Conversion, Up: Coding Systems Coding System Properties ------------------------ `mnemonic' String to be displayed in the modeline when this coding system is active. `eol-type' End-of-line conversion to be used. It should be one of the types listed in *Note EOL Conversion::. `post-read-conversion' Function called after a file has been read in, to perform the decoding. Called with two arguments, BEG and END, denoting a region of the current buffer to be decoded. `pre-write-conversion' Function called before a file is written out, to perform the encoding. Called with two arguments, BEG and END, denoting a region of the current buffer to be encoded. The following additional properties are recognized if TYPE is `iso2022': `charset-g0' `charset-g1' `charset-g2' `charset-g3' The character set initially designated to the G0 - G3 registers. The value should be one of * A charset object (designate that character set) * `nil' (do not ever use this register) * `t' (no character set is initially designated to the register, but may be later on; this automatically sets the corresponding `force-g*-on-output' property) `force-g0-on-output' `force-g1-on-output' `force-g2-on-output' `force-g3-on-output' If non-`nil', send an explicit designation sequence on output before using the specified register. `short' If non-`nil', use the short forms `ESC $ @', `ESC $ A', and `ESC $ B' on output in place of the full designation sequences `ESC $ ( @', `ESC $ ( A', and `ESC $ ( B'. `no-ascii-eol' If non-`nil', don't designate ASCII to G0 at each end of line on output. Setting this to non-`nil' also suppresses other state-resetting that normally happens at the end of a line. `no-ascii-cntl' If non-`nil', don't designate ASCII to G0 before control chars on output. `seven' If non-`nil', use 7-bit environment on output. Otherwise, use 8-bit environment. `lock-shift' If non-`nil', use locking-shift (SO/SI) instead of single-shift or designation by escape sequence. `no-iso6429' If non-`nil', don't use ISO6429's direction specification. `escape-quoted' If non-nil, literal control characters that are the same as the beginning of a recognized ISO 2022 or ISO 6429 escape sequence (in particular, ESC (0x1B), SO (0x0E), SI (0x0F), SS2 (0x8E), SS3 (0x8F), and CSI (0x9B)) are "quoted" with an escape character so that they can be properly distinguished from an escape sequence. (Note that doing this results in a non-portable encoding.) This encoding flag is used for byte-compiled files. Note that ESC is a good choice for a quoting character because there are no escape sequences whose second byte is a character from the Control-0 or Control-1 character sets; this is explicitly disallowed by the ISO 2022 standard. `input-charset-conversion' A list of conversion specifications, specifying conversion of characters in one charset to another when decoding is performed. Each specification is a list of two elements: the source charset, and the destination charset. `output-charset-conversion' A list of conversion specifications, specifying conversion of characters in one charset to another when encoding is performed. The form of each specification is the same as for `input-charset-conversion'. The following additional properties are recognized (and required) if TYPE is `ccl': `decode' CCL program used for decoding (converting to internal format). `encode' CCL program used for encoding (converting to external format).  File: lispref.info, Node: Basic Coding System Functions, Next: Coding System Property Functions, Prev: Coding System Properties, Up: Coding Systems Basic Coding System Functions ----------------------------- - Function: find-coding-system CODING-SYSTEM-OR-NAME This function retrieves the coding system of the given name. If CODING-SYSTEM-OR-NAME is a coding-system object, it is simply returned. Otherwise, CODING-SYSTEM-OR-NAME should be a symbol. If there is no such coding system, `nil' is returned. Otherwise the associated coding system object is returned. - Function: get-coding-system NAME This function retrieves the coding system of the given name. Same as `find-coding-system' except an error is signalled if there is no such coding system instead of returning `nil'. - Function: coding-system-list This function returns a list of the names of all defined coding systems. - Function: coding-system-name CODING-SYSTEM This function returns the name of the given coding system. - Function: make-coding-system NAME TYPE &optional DOC-STRING PROPS This function registers symbol NAME as a coding system. TYPE describes the conversion method used and should be one of the types listed in *Note Coding System Types::. DOC-STRING is a string describing the coding system. PROPS is a property list, describing the specific nature of the character set. Recognized properties are as in *Note Coding System Properties::. - Function: copy-coding-system OLD-CODING-SYSTEM NEW-NAME This function copies OLD-CODING-SYSTEM to NEW-NAME. If NEW-NAME does not name an existing coding system, a new one will be created. - Function: subsidiary-coding-system CODING-SYSTEM EOL-TYPE This function returns the subsidiary coding system of CODING-SYSTEM with eol type EOL-TYPE.  File: lispref.info, Node: Coding System Property Functions, Next: Encoding and Decoding Text, Prev: Basic Coding System Functions, Up: Coding Systems Coding System Property Functions -------------------------------- - Function: coding-system-doc-string CODING-SYSTEM This function returns the doc string for CODING-SYSTEM. - Function: coding-system-type CODING-SYSTEM This function returns the type of CODING-SYSTEM. - Function: coding-system-property CODING-SYSTEM PROP This function returns the PROP property of CODING-SYSTEM.  File: lispref.info, Node: Encoding and Decoding Text, Next: Detection of Textual Encoding, Prev: Coding System Property Functions, Up: Coding Systems Encoding and Decoding Text -------------------------- - Function: decode-coding-region START END CODING-SYSTEM &optional BUFFER This function decodes the text between START and END which is encoded in CODING-SYSTEM. This is useful if you've read in encoded text from a file without decoding it (e.g. you read in a JIS-formatted file but used the `binary' or `no-conversion' coding system, so that it shows up as `^[$B!