\input texinfo   @c -*-texinfo-*-

@c Manual for the XEmacs latin-unity package.

@c ** #### something uses these headers, find out how and explain here
@c %**start of header
@setfilename latin-unity.info
@settitle Equivalencing Coded Latin Characters
@setchapternewpage odd
@c %**end of header

@c Version values, for easy modification
@set VERSION 1.0
@set UPDATED Thursday 2002 March 23

@c ** Many people seem to prefer this footenote style
@footnotestyle end

@direntry
* latin-unity::                Remap Latin characters from a single charset.
@end direntry

@c ** It is often convenient to use a macro for names which have unusual
@c ** spelling or formatting conventions.
@c Macro to make formatting of the package name consistent.
@macro pkgname
@i{latin-unity}
@end macro

@c Copying permissions, et al
@c Note that this whole section is repeated twice, once for the Info
@c version and once for TeX.  ####  How about HTML, etc?
@ifinfo
This file is part of XEmacs.  It documents the @pkgname{} package,
which ensures that wherever possible representations of all Latin
characters are drawn from the same 8-bit character set.
     
Copyright @copyright{} 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     
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.
     
@ignore 
Permission is granted to process this file through TeX and print the
results, provided the printed document carries a copying permission
notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
(this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual).
   
@end ignore
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the
sections entitled ``Copying'' and ``GNU General Public License'' are
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 this permission notice may be stated in a translation
approved by the Free Software Foundation.
@end ifinfo

@tex

@titlepage
@title Latin Unity for Emacsen
@subtitle Last updated @value{UPDATED}

@author Stephen J. Turnbull
@page

This manual is part of XEmacs.  It documents the @pkgname{} package,
which ensures that wherever possible representations of all Latin
characters are drawn from the same 8-bit character set.
     
Copyright @copyright{} 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
     
@vskip 0pt plus 1filll
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 also that the
sections entitled ``Copying'' and ``GNU General Public License'' are
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 this permission notice may be stated in a translation
approved by the Free Software Foundation.

@end titlepage
@page

@end tex

@ifnottex
@node Top, Copying, (dir), (dir)
@top Latin Unity for Emacsen

@html
This project kindly hosted by
<br />
<a href="http://sunsite.dk">
<img src="http://sunsite.dk/images/hostedby.png"
     border="0" alt="sunSITE.dk Logo" /></a>
<a href="http://www.tux.org/">
<img src="http://www.tux.org/images/minibanner.gif"
     width="88" height="31" border="0" alt="Tux.Org Logo" /></a>
<a href="http://sourceforge.net">
<img src="http://sourceforge.net/sflogo.php?group_id=34545"
     width="88" height="31" border="0" alt="SourceForge Logo" /></a>
@end html

Mule suffers from a design defect that causes it to consider the ISO
Latin character sets to be disjoint.  This results in oddities such as
files containing both ISO 8859/1 and ISO 8859/15 codes, and using ISO
2022 control sequences to switch between them, as well as more plausible
but often unnecessary combinations like ISO 8859/1 with ISO 8859/2.
This can be very annoying when sending messages or even in simple
editing on a single host.  @pkgname{} works around the problem by
converting as many characters as possible to use a single Latin coded
character set before saving the buffer.

This is version @value{VERSION} of the @pkgname{} manual, last updated on
@value{UPDATED}.

@c ** Currently we provide documentation for the XEmacs core, but not for
@c ** individual packages, on the web.  Check for latest policy either at
@c ** www.xemacs.org or on xemacs-beta@xemacs.org.

@c You can find the latest version of this document on the web at
@c @uref{http://www.xemacs.org/}.

@ifhtml
@c ** Mention translations and other online versions here.

@c ** Adjust to taste.  You may wish to mention newgroups such as
@c ** comp.emacs.xemacs, comp.emacs, and gnu.emacs.help.
Discussion and enhancement of @pkgname{} is conducted on the XEmacs
mailing lists, especially the XEmacs Beta list.  See
@uref{http://www.xemacs.org/Lists/} for more information about the
XEmacs mailing lists.
@end ifhtml

@end ifnottex

@menu
* Copying::                     @pkgname{} copying conditions.
* Overview::                    @pkgname{} history and general information.

For general users:
* Usage::                       An overview of the operation of @pkgname{}.
* Installation::                Installing @pkgname{} with your (X)Emacs.
* Configuration::               Configuring @pkgname{} for use.
* Bug Reports::                 Reporting bugs and problems.
* Frequently Asked Questions::  Questions and answers from the mailing list.
* Theory of Operation::         How @pkgname{} works.
* What latin-unity Cannot Do for You::  Inherent problems of 8-bit charsets.

For programmers:
* Interfaces::                  Calling @pkgname{} from Lisp code.
* Charsets and Coding Systems:: Reference lists with annotations.

For maintainers:
* Internals::                   Utilities and implementation details.

@c ** For small packages, with no or few subnodes, a detailmenu is not
@c ** necessary.
@c @detailmenu
@c  --- The Detailed Node Listing ---

@c @end detailmenu
@end menu

@node Copying, Overview, Top, Top
@chapter @pkgname{} Copying Conditions

@c ** CHECK THE COPYRIGHT DATE(S) AND HOLDER(S)!

Copyright (C) 2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

@pkgname{} is free software; you can redistribute it
and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your
option) any later version.

@pkgname{} is distributed in the hope that it will
be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty
of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
with XEmacs; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307,
USA.


@node Overview, Usage, Copying, Top
@chapter An Overview of @pkgname{}

Mule suffers from a design defect that causes it to consider the ISO
Latin character sets to be disjoint.  This manifests itself when a user
enters characters using input methods associated with different coded
character sets into a single buffer.

A very important example involves email.  Many sites, especially in the
U.S., default to use of the ISO 8859/1 coded character set (also called
``Latin 1,'' though these are somewhat different concepts).  However,
ISO 8859/1 provides a generic CURRENCY SIGN character.  Now that the
Euro has become the official currency of most countries in Europe, this
is unsatisfactory (and in practice, useless).  So Europeans generally
use ISO 8859/15, which is nearly identical to ISO 8859/1 for most
languages, except that it substitutes EURO SIGN for CURRENCY SIGN.

Suppose a European user yanks text from a post encoded in ISO 8859/1
into a message composition buffer, and enters some text including the
Euro sign.  Then Mule will consider the buffer to contain both ISO
8859/1 and ISO 8859/15 text, and MUAs such as Gnus will (if naively
programmed) send the message as a multipart mixed MIME body!

This is clearly stupid.  What is not as obvious is that, just as any
European can include American English in their text because ASCII is a
subset of ISO 8859/15, most European languages which use Latin
characters (eg, German and Polish) can typically be mixed while using
only one Latin coded character set (in this case, ISO 8859/2).  However,
this often depends on exactly what text is to be encoded.

@pkgname{} works around the problem by converting as many characters as
possible to use a single Latin coded character set before saving the
buffer.

@node Usage, Installation, Overview, Top
@chapter Operation of @pkgname{}

Normally, @pkgname{} works in the background by installing
@code{latin-unity-sanity-check} on @code{write-region-pre-hook}.  The
user activates this functionality by invoking
@code{latin-unity-install}, either interactively or in her init file.
@xref{Init File, , , xemacs}.  @pkgname{} can be deactivated by
invoking @code{latin-unity-uninstall}.

@pkgname{} also provides a few functions for remapping or recoding the
buffer by hand.  To @dfn{remap} a character means to change the buffer
representation of the character by using another coded character set.
Remapping never changes the identity of the character, but may involve
altering the code point of the character.  To @dfn{recode} a character
means to simply change the coded character set.  Recoding never alters
the code point of the character, but may change the identity of the
character.  @xref{Theory of Operation}.

There are a few variables which determine which coding systems are
always acceptable to @pkgname{}:  @code{latin-unity-ucs-list},
@code{latin-unity-preferred-coding-system-list}, and
@code{latin-unity-preapproved-coding-system-list}.  The latter two default
to @code{()}, and should probably be avoided because they short-circuit
the sanity check.  If you find you need to use them, consider reporting
it as a bug or request for enhancement.  Because they seem unsafe, the
recommended interface is likely to change.

@menu
* Basic Functionality::            User interface and customization.
* Interactive Usage::              Treating text by hand.
                                   Also documents the hook function(s).
@end menu


@node Basic Functionality, Interactive Usage, , Usage
@section Basic Functionality

These functions and user options initialize and configure @pkgname{}.
In normal use, only a call to @code{latin-unity-install} is needed.


@defun latin-unity-install
Set up hooks and initialize variables for latin-unity.

There are no arguments.

This function is idempotent.  It will reinitialize any hooks or variables
that are not in initial state.

Note: a quirk in XEmacs means that the @file{cl-macs} library cannot be
required, it must be loaded explicitly.  This means that if you invoke
@samp{latin-unity-install} in your init file, XEmacs will print
@example
Loading cl-macs...
Loading cl-macs...done
@end example
on your console, as these messages have not yet been redirected to the
@samp{ *Message-Log*} buffer.
@end defun


@defun latin-unity-uninstall
There are no arguments.

Clean up hooks and void variables used by latin-unity.
@end defun


@defopt latin-unity-ucs-list
List of coding systems considered to be universal.

The default value is @code{'(utf-8 iso-2022-7 ctext escape-quoted)}.

Order matters; coding systems earlier in the list will be preferred when
recommending a coding system.  These coding systems will not be used
without querying the user (unless they are also present in
@code{latin-unity-preapproved-coding-system-list}), and follow the
@code{latin-unity-preferred-coding-system-list} in the list of suggested
coding systems.

If none of the preferred coding systems are feasible, the first in
this list will be the default.

Notes on certain coding systems:  @code{escape-quoted} is a special
coding system used for autosaves and compiled Lisp in Mule.  You should
not delete this, although it is rare that a user would want to use it
directly.  @pkgname{} does not try to be \"smart\" about other general
ISO 2022 coding systems, such as ISO-2022-JP.  (They are not recognized
as equivalent to @code{iso-2022-7}.)  If your preferred coding system is
one of these, you may consider adding it to @code{latin-unity-ucs-list}.
However, this will typically have the side effect that (eg) ISO 8859/1
files will be saved in 7-bit form with ISO 2022 escape sequences.
@end defopt


Coding systems which are not Latin and not in
@code{latin-unity-ucs-list} are handled by short circuiting checks of
coding system against the next two variables.

@defopt latin-unity-preapproved-coding-system-list
List of coding systems used without querying the user if feasible.

The default value is @samp{(buffer-default preferred)}.

The first feasible coding system in this list is used.  The special values
@samp{preferred} and @samp{buffer-default} may be present:

@table @code
@item buffer-default
Use the coding system used by @samp{write-region}, if feasible.

@item preferred
Use the coding system specified by @samp{prefer-coding-system} if feasible.
@end table

"Feasible" means that all characters in the buffer can be represented by
the coding system.  Coding systems in @samp{latin-unity-ucs-list} are
always considered feasible.  Other feasible coding systems are computed
by @samp{latin-unity-representations-feasible-region}.

Note that the first universal coding system in this list shadows all
other coding systems.  In particular, if your preferred coding system is
a universal coding system, and @code{preferred} is a member of this
list, @pkgname{} will blithely convert all your files to that coding
system.  This is considered a feature, but it may surprise most users.
Users who don't like this behavior should put @code{preferred} in
@code{latin-unity-preferred-coding-system-list}.
@end defopt


@defopt latin-unity-preferred-coding-system-list
List of coding systems suggested the user if feasible.

The default value is @samp{(iso-8859-1 iso-8859-15 iso-8859-2 iso-8859-3
iso-8859-4 iso-8859-9)}.

If none of the coding systems in
@samp{latin-unity-preferred-coding-system-list} are feasible, this list
will be recommended to the user, followed by the
@samp{latin-unity-ucs-list} (so those coding systems should not be in
this list).  The first coding system in this list is default.  The
special values @samp{preferred} and @samp{buffer-default} may be
present:

@table @code
@item buffer-default
Use the coding system used by @samp{write-region}, if feasible.

@item preferred
Use the coding system specified by @samp{prefer-coding-system} if feasible.
@end table

"Feasible" means that all characters in the buffer can be represented by
the coding system.  Coding systems in @samp{latin-unity-ucs-list} are
always considered feasible.  Other feasible coding systems are computed
by @samp{latin-unity-representations-feasible-region}.
@end defopt


@defvar latin-unity-iso-8859-1-aliases
List of coding systems to be treated as aliases of ISO 8859/1.

The default value is '(iso-8859-1).

This is not a user variable; to customize input of coding systems or
charsets, @samp{latin-unity-coding-system-alias-alist} or
@samp{latin-unity-charset-alias-alist}.
@end defvar


@node Interactive Usage, , Basic Functionality, Usage
@section Interactive Usage

First, the hook function @code{latin-unity-sanity-check} is documented.
(It is placed here because it is not an interactive function, and there
is not yet a programmer's section of the manual.)

These functions provide access to internal functionality (such as the
remapping function) and to extra functionality (the recoding functions
and the test function).


@defun latin-unity-sanity-check begin end filename append visit lockname &optional coding-system

Check if @var{coding-system} can represent all characters between
@var{begin} and @var{end}.

For compatibility with old broken versions of @code{write-region},
@var{coding-system} defaults to @code{buffer-file-coding-system}.
@var{filename}, @var{append}, @var{visit}, and @var{lockname} are
ignored.

Return nil if buffer-file-coding-system is not (ISO-2022-compatible)
Latin.  If @code{buffer-file-coding-system} is safe for the charsets
actually present in the buffer, return it.  Otherwise, ask the user to
choose a coding system, and return that.

This function does @emph{not} do the safe thing when
@code{buffer-file-coding-system} is nil (aka no-conversion).  It
considers that ``non-Latin,'' and passes it on to the Mule detection
mechanism.

This function is intended for use as a @code{write-region-pre-hook}.  It
does nothing except return @var{coding-system} if @code{write-region}
handlers are inhibited.
@end defun


@defun latin-unity-buffer-representations-feasible

There are no arguments.

Apply latin-unity-region-representations-feasible to the current buffer.
@end defun


@defun latin-unity-region-representations-feasible begin end &optional buf

Return character sets that can represent the text from @var{begin} to @var{end} in @var{buf}.

@var{buf} defaults to the current buffer.  Called interactively, will be
applied to the region.  Function assumes @var{begin} <= @var{end}.

The return value is a cons.  The car is the list of character sets
that can individually represent all of the non-ASCII portion of the
buffer, and the cdr is the list of character sets that can
individually represent all of the ASCII portion.

The following is taken from a comment in the source.  Please refer to
the source to be sure of an accurate description.

The basic algorithm is to map over the region, compute the set of
charsets that can represent each character (the ``feasible charset''),
and take the intersection of those sets.

The current implementation takes advantage of the fact that ASCII
characters are common and cannot change asciisets.  Then using
skip-chars-forward makes motion over ASCII subregions very fast.

This same strategy could be applied generally by precomputing classes
of characters equivalent according to their effect on latinsets, and
adding a whole class to the skip-chars-forward string once a member is
found.

Probably efficiency is a function of the number of characters matched,
or maybe the length of the match string?  With @code{skip-category-forward}
over a precomputed category table it should be really fast.  In practice
for Latin character sets there are only 29 classes.
@end defun


@defun latin-unity-remap-region begin end character-set &optional coding-system

Remap characters between @var{begin} and @var{end} to equivalents in
@var{character-set}.  Optional argument @var{coding-system} may be a
coding system name (a symbol) or nil.  Characters with no equivalent are
left as-is.

When called interactively, @var{begin} and @var{end} are set to the
beginning and end, respectively, of the active region, and the function
prompts for @var{character-set}.  The function does completion, knows
how to guess a character set name from a coding system name, and also
provides some common aliases.  See @code{latin-unity-guess-charset}.
There is no way to specify @var{coding-system}, as it has no useful
function interactively.

Return @var{coding-system} if @var{coding-system} can encode all
characters in the region, t if @var{coding-system} is nil and the coding
system with G0 = 'ascii and G1 = @var{character-set} can encode all
characters, and otherwise nil.  Note that a non-null return does
@emph{not} mean it is safe to write the file, only the specified region.
(This behavior is useful for multipart MIME encoding and the like.)

Note:  by default this function is quite fascist about universal coding
systems.  It only admits @samp{utf-8}, @samp{iso-2022-7}, and
@samp{ctext}.  Customize @code{latin-unity-approved-ucs-list} to change
this.

This function remaps characters that are artificially distinguished by Mule
internal code.  It may change the code point as well as the character set.
To recode characters that were decoded in the wrong coding system, use
@code{latin-unity-recode-region}.
@end defun


@defun latin-unity-recode-region begin end wrong-cs right-cs

Recode characters between @var{begin} and @var{end} from @var{wrong-cs}
to @var{right-cs}.

@var{wrong-cs} and @var{right-cs} are character sets.  Characters retain
the same code point but the character set is changed.  Only characters
from @var{wrong-cs} are changed to @var{right-cs}.  The identity of the
character may change.  Note that this could be dangerous, if characters
whose identities you do not want changed are included in the region.
This function cannot guess which characters you want changed, and which
should be left alone.

When called interactively, @var{begin} and @var{end} are set to the
beginning and end, respectively, of the active region, and the function
prompts for @var{wrong-cs} and @var{right-cs}.  The function does
completion, knows how to guess a character set name from a coding system
name, and also provides some common aliases.  See
@code{latin-unity-guess-charset}.

Another way to accomplish this, but using coding systems rather than
character sets to specify the desired recoding, is
@samp{latin-unity-recode-coding-region}.  That function may be faster
but is somewhat more dangerous, because it may recode more than one
character set.

To change from one Mule representation to another without changing identity
of any characters, use @samp{latin-unity-remap-region}.
@end defun


@defun latin-unity-recode-coding-region begin end wrong-cs right-cs

Recode text between @var{begin} and @var{end} from @var{wrong-cs} to
@var{right-cs}.

@var{wrong-cs} and @var{right-cs} are coding systems.  Characters retain
the same code point but the character set is changed.  The identity of
characters may change.  This is an inherently dangerous function;
multilingual text may be recoded in unexpected ways.  #### It's also
dangerous because the coding systems are not sanity-checked in the
current implementation.

When called interactively, @var{begin} and @var{end} are set to the
beginning and end, respectively, of the active region, and the function
prompts for @var{wrong-cs} and @var{right-cs}.  The function does
completion, knows how to guess a coding system name from a character set
name, and also provides some common aliases.  See
@code{latin-unity-guess-coding-system}.

Another, safer, way to accomplish this, using character sets rather than coding
systems to specify the desired recoding, is to use `latin-unity-recode-region.

To change from one Mule representation to another without changing identity
of any characters, use @code{latin-unity-remap-region}.
@end defun


Helper functions for input of coding system and character set names.

@defun latin-unity-guess-charset candidate
Guess a charset based on the symbol @var{candidate}.

@var{candidate} itself is not tried as the value.

Uses the natural mapping in @samp{latin-unity-cset-codesys-alist}, and
the values in @samp{latin-unity-charset-alias-alist}."
@end defun

@defun latin-unity-guess-coding-system candidate
Guess a coding system based on the symbol @var{candidate}.

@var{candidate} itself is not tried as the value.

Uses the natural mapping in @samp{latin-unity-cset-codesys-alist}, and
the values in @samp{latin-unity-coding-system-alias-alist}."
@end defun


@defun latin-unity-example

A cheesy example for @pkgname{}.

At present it just makes a multilingual buffer.  To test, setq
buffer-file-coding-system to some value, make the buffer dirty (eg
with RET BackSpace), and save.
@end defun

@defun latin-unity-test

A simple automated test suite for latin-unity.
@end defun


@node Installation, Configuration, Usage, Top
@chapter Installing @pkgname{} with your (X)Emacs

@pkgname{} may be installed from XEmacs via the package user interface
(accessible from the @samp{Tools} menu or via @kbd{M-x list-packages}).

You can also download the @file{latin-unity-@var{version}-pkg.tar.gz}
tarball from @url{ftp://ftp.xemacs.org/pub/xemacs/packages/}, and simply
unpack it in the usual place.

@pkgname{} sources are available from XEmacs's CVS repository.  The
module name is @samp{latin-unity}.  See
@uref{http://www.xemacs.org/Develop/cvsaccess.html} for more
information about XEmacs's CVS repository.


@node Configuration, Bug Reports, Installation, Top
@chapter Configuring @pkgname{} for Use

If you want @pkgname{} to be automatically initialized, invoke
@samp{latin-unity-install} with no arguments in your init file.
@xref{Init File, , , xemacs}.  If you are using GNU Emacs or an XEmacs
earlier than 21.1, you should also load @file{auto-autoloads} using the
full path (@emph{never} @samp{require} @file{auto-autoloads} libraries).

You may wish to define aliases for commonly used character sets and
coding systems for convenience in input.

@defopt latin-unity-charset-alias-alist
Alist mapping aliases to Mule charset names (symbols)."

The default value is
@example
   ((latin-1 . latin-iso8859-1)
    (latin-2 . latin-iso8859-2)
    (latin-3 . latin-iso8859-3)
    (latin-4 . latin-iso8859-4)
    (latin-5 . latin-iso8859-9)
    (latin-9 . latin-iso8859-15)
    (latin-10 . latin-iso8859-16))
@end example

If a charset does not exist on your system, it will not complete and you
will not be able to enter it in response to prompts.  A real charset
with the same name as an alias in this list will shadow the alias.
@end defopt

@defopt latin-unity-coding-system-alias-alist nil
Alist mapping aliases to Mule coding system names (symbols).

The default value is @samp{nil}.
@end defopt


@node Bug Reports, Frequently Asked Questions, Configuration, Top
@chapter Reporting Bugs and Problems

Please report bugs to the author, @email{stephen@@xemacs.org,Stephen
Turnbull}, or to the developers' mailing list,
@email{xemacs-beta@@xemacs.org, XEmacs Beta}.

Suggestions for improvement are welcome at the same addresses.


@node Frequently Asked Questions, Theory of Operation, Bug Reports, Top
@chapter Frequently Asked Questions

@enumerate
@item
I'm smarter than latin-unity!  How can that be?

Don't be surprised.  Trust yourself.

latin-unity is very young as yet.  Teach it what you know by Customizing
its variables, and report your changes to the maintainer (@pxref{Bug
Reports}).

@item
What is a UCS?

According to ISO 10646, a Universal Coded character Set.  In
latin-unity, it's Universal (Mule) Coding System.
@ref{Coding Systems, , , xemacs}

@item
I know utf-16-le-bom is a UCS, but latin-unity won't use it.  Why not?

There are an awful lot of UCSes in Mule, and you probably do not want to
ever use, and definitely not be asked about, most of them.  So the
default set includes a few that the author thought plausible, but
they're surely not comprehensive or optimal.

Customize @code{latin-unity-ucs-list} to include the ones you use, and
report your favorites to the maintainer for consideration for inclusion
in the defaults, @xref{Bug Reports}.  (Note that you @emph{must} include
@code{escape-quoted} in this list, because Mule uses it internally as
the coding system for auto-save files.)

Alternatively, if you just want to use it this one time, simply type it
in at the prompt.  latin-unity will confirm that is a real coding
system, and then assume that you know what you're doing.

@item
This is crazy: I can't quit XEmacs and get queried on autosaves!  Why?

You probably removed @code{escape-quoted} from
@code{latin-unity-ucs-list}.  Put it back.

@item
latin-unity is really buggy and I can't get any work done.

First, use @kbd{M-x latin-unity-uninstall RET}, then report your
problems as a bug (@pxref{Bug Reports}).
@end enumerate


@node Theory of Operation, What latin-unity Cannot Do for You, Frequently Asked Questions, Top
@chapter Theory of Operation

Standard encodings suffer from the design defect that they do not
provide a reliable way to recognize which coded character sets in use.
@xref{What latin-unity Cannot Do for You}.  There are scores of
character sets which can be represented by a single octet (8-bit byte),
whose union contains many hundreds of characters.  Obviously this
results in great confusion, since you can't tell the players without a
scorecard, and there is no scorecard.

There are two ways to solve this problem.  The first is to create a
universal coded character set.  This is the concept behind Unicode.
However, there have been satisfactory (nearly) universal character sets
for several decades, but even today many Westerners resist using Unicode
because they consider its space requirements excessive.  On the other
hand, Asians dislike Unicode because they consider it to be incomplete.
(This is partly, but not entirely, political.)

In any case, Unicode only solves the internal representation problem.
Many data sets will contain files in ``legacy'' encodings, and Unicode
does not help distinguish among them.

The second approach is to embed information about the encodings used in
a document in its text.  This approach is taken by the ISO 2022
standard.  This would solve the problem completely from the users' of
view, except that ISO 2022 is basically not implemented at all, in the
sense that few applications or systems implement more than a small
subset of ISO 2022 functionality.  This is due to the fact that
mono-literate users object to the presence of escape sequences in their
texts (which they, with some justification, consider data corruption).
Programmers are more than willing to cater to these users, since
implementing ISO 2022 is a painstaking task.

In fact, Emacs/Mule adopts both of these approaches.  Internally it uses
a universal character set, @dfn{Mule code}.  Externally it uses ISO 2022
techniques both to save files in forms robust to encoding issues, and as
hints when attempting to ``guess'' an unknown encoding.  However, Mule
suffers from a design defect, namely it embeds the character set
information that ISO 2022 attaches to runs of characters by introducing
them with a control sequence in each character.  That causes Mule to
consider the ISO Latin character sets to be disjoint.  This manifests
itself when a user enters characters using input methods associated with
different coded character sets into a single buffer.

There are two problems stemming from this design.  First, Mule
represents the same character in different ways.  Abstractly, ',As(B'
(LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH ACUTE) can get represented as
[latin-iso8859-1 #x73] or as [latin-iso8859-2 #x73].  So what looks like
',Ass(B' in the display might actually be represented [latin-iso8859-1
#x73][latin-iso8859-2 #x73] in the buffer, and saved as [#xF3 ESC - B
#xF3 ESC - A] in the file.  In some cases this treatment would be
appropriate (consider HYPHEN, MINUS SIGN, EN DASH, EM DASH, and U+4E00
(the CJK ideographic character meaning ``one'')), and although arguably
incorrect it is convenient when mixing the CJK scripts.  But in the case
of the Latin scripts this is wrong.

Worse yet, it is very likely to occur when mixing ``different'' encodings
(such as ISO 8859/1 and ISO 8859/15) that differ only in a few code
points that are almost never used.  A very important example involves
email.  Many sites, especially in the U.S., default to use of the ISO
8859/1 coded character set (also called ``Latin 1,'' though these are
somewhat different concepts).  However, ISO 8859/1 provides a generic
CURRENCY SIGN character.  Now that the Euro has become the official
currency of most countries in Europe, this is unsatisfactory (and in
practice, useless).  So Europeans generally use ISO 8859/15, which is
nearly identical to ISO 8859/1 for most languages, except that it
substitutes EURO SIGN for CURRENCY SIGN.

Suppose a European user yanks text from a post encoded in ISO 8859/1
into a message composition buffer, and enters some text including the
Euro sign.  Then Mule will consider the buffer to contain both ISO
8859/1 and ISO 8859/15 text, and MUAs such as Gnus will (if naively
programmed) send the message as a multipart mixed MIME body!

This is clearly stupid.  What is not as obvious is that, just as any
European can include American English in their text because ASCII is a
subset of ISO 8859/15, most European languages which use Latin
characters (eg, German and Polish) can typically be mixed while using
only one Latin coded character set (in the case of German and Polish,
ISO 8859/2).  However, this often depends on exactly what text is to be
encoded (even for the same pair of languages).

@pkgname{} works around the problem by converting as many characters as
possible to use a single Latin coded character set before saving the
buffer.

Because the problem is rarely noticable in editing a buffer, but tends
to manifest when that buffer is exported to a file or process, the
@pkgname{} package uses the strategy of examining the buffer prior to
export.  If use of multiple Latin coded character sets is detected,
@pkgname{} attempts to unify them by finding a single coded character
set which contains all of the Latin characters in the buffer.

The primary purpose of @pkgname{} is to fix the problem by giving the
user the choice to change the representation of all characters to one
character set and give sensible recommendations based on context.  In
the ',As(B' example, either ISO 8859/1 or ISO 8859/2 is satisfactory, and
both will be suggested.  In the EURO SIGN example, only ISO 8859/15
makes sense, and that is what will be recommended.  In both cases, the
user will be reminded that there are universal encodings available.

I call this @dfn{remapping} (from the universal character set to a
particular ISO 8859 coded character set).  It is mere accident that this
letter has the same code point in both character sets.  (Not entirely,
but there are many examples of Latin characters that have different code
points in different Latin-X sets.)

Note that, in the ',As(B' example, that treating the buffer in this way will
result in a representation such as [latin-iso8859-2
#x73][latin-iso8859-2 #x73], and the file will be saved as [#xF3 #xF3].
This is guaranteed to occasionally result in the second problem you
observed, to which we now turn.

This problem is that, although the file is intended to be an
ISO-8859/2-encoded file, in an ISO 8859/1 locale Mule (and every POSIX
compliant program---this is required by the standard, obvious if you
think a bit, @pxref{What latin-unity Cannot Do for You}) will read that
file as [latin-iso8859-1 #x73] [latin-iso8859-1 #x73].  Of course this
is no problem if all of the characters in the file are contained in ISO
8859/1, but suppose there are some which are not, but are contained in
the (intended) ISO 8859/2.

You now want to fix this, but not by finding the same character in
another set.  Instead, you want to simply change the character set that
Mule associates with that buffer position without changing the code.
(This is conceptually somewhat distinct from the first problem, and
logically ought to be handled in the code that defines coding systems.
However, @pkgname{} is not an unreasonable place for it.)  @pkgname{}
provides two functions (one fast and dangerous, the other slow and
careful) to handle this.  I call this @dfn{recoding}, because the
transformation actually involves @emph{encoding} the buffer to file
representation, then @emph{decoding} it to buffer representation (in a
different character set).  This cannot be done automatically because
Mule can have no idea what the correct encoding is---after all, it
already gave you its best guess.  @xref{What latin-unity Cannot Do for
You}.  So these functions must be invoked by the user.  @xref{Interactive
Usage}.


@node What latin-unity Cannot Do for You, Interfaces, Theory of Operation, Top
@chapter What latin-unity Cannot Do for You

@pkgname{} @strong{cannot} save you if you insist on exporting data in
8-bit encodings in a multilingual environment.  @emph{You will
eventually corrupt data if you do this.}  It is not Mule's, or any
application's, fault.  You will have only yourself to blame; consider
yourself warned.  (It is true that Mule has bugs, which make Mule
somewhat more dangerous and inconvenient than some naive applications.
We're working to address those, but no application can remedy the
inherent defect of 8-bit encodings.)

Use standard universal encodings, preferably Unicode (UTF-8) unless
applicable standards indicate otherwise.  The most important such case
is Internet messages, where MIME should be used, whether or not the
subordinate encoding is a universal encoding.  (Note that since one of
the important provisions of MIME is the @samp{Content-Type} header,
which has the charset parameter, MIME is to be considered a universal
encoding for the purposes of this manual.  Of course, technically
speaking it's neither a coded character set nor a coding extension
technique compliant with ISO 2022.)

As mentioned earlier, the problem is that standard encodings suffer from
the design defect that they do not provide a reliable way to recognize
which coded character sets are in use.  There are scores of character
sets which can be represented by a single octet (8-bit byte), whose
union contains many hundreds of characters.  Thus any 8-bit coded
character set must contain characters that share code points used for
different characters in other coded character sets.

This means that a given file's intended encoding cannot be identified
with 100% reliability unless it contains encoding markers such as those
provided by MIME or ISO 2022.

@pkgname{} actually makes it more likely that you will have problems of
this kind.  Traditionally Mule has been ``helpful'' by simply using an
ISO 2022 universal coding system when the current buffer coding system
cannot handle all the characters in the buffer.  This has the effect
that, because the file contains control sequences, it is not recognized
as being in the locale's normal 8-bit encoding.  It may be annoying if
you are not a Mule expert, but your data is automatically recoverable
with a tool you already have: Mule.

However, with @pkgname{}, Mule converts to a single 8-bit character set
when possible.  But typically this will @emph{not} be in your usual
locale.  Ie, the times that an ISO 8859/1 user will need @pkgname{} is
when there are ISO 8859/2 characters in the buffer.  But then most
likely the file will be saved in a pure 8-bit encoding that is not ISO
8859/1, ie, ISO 8859/2.  Mule's autorecognizer (which is probably the
most sophisticated yet available) cannot tell the difference between ISO
8859/1 and ISO 8859/2, and in a Western European locale will choose the
former even though the latter was intended.  Even the extension
(``statistical recognition'') planned for XEmacs 22 is unlikely to be at
all accurate in the case of mixed codes.

So now consider adding some additional ISO 8859/1 text to the buffer.
If it includes any ISO 8859/1 codes that are used by different
characters in ISO 8859/2, you now have a file that cannot be
mechanically disentangled.  You need a human being who can recognize
that @emph{this is German and Swedish} and stays in Latin-1, while
@emph{that is Polish} and needs to be recoded to Latin-2.

Moral: switch to a universal coded character set, preferably Unicode
using the UTF-8 transformation format.  If you really need the space,
compress your files.


@node Interfaces, Charsets and Coding Systems, What latin-unity Cannot Do for You, Top
@chapter Interfaces

The Latin-9 language environment is provided in
@file{latin-unity-latin9.el}.  This file when compiled contains Latin 9
characters, so you @strong{must} load @file{latin-unity-vars.el} first
to define those characters.  Otherwise the Lisp reader is likely to
signal an error due to stray ISO 2022 control sequences.

Similar considerations apply to @file{latin-unity-latin7.el},
@file{latin-unity-latin8.el} and @file{latin-unity-latin10.el}.

Sorry, that's all I have to say for now---but it's important!

@node Charsets and Coding Systems, Internals, Interfaces, Top
@chapter Charsets and Coding Systems

This section provides reference lists of Mule charsets and coding
systems.  Mule charsets are typically named by character set and
standard.

@table @strong
@item ASCII variants

Identification of equivalent characters in these sets is not properly
implemented.  @pkgname{} does not distinguish the two charsets.

@samp{ascii} @samp{latin-jisx0201}

@item Extended Latin

Characters from the following ISO 2022 conformant charsets are
identified with equivalents in other charsets in the group by
@pkgname{}.

@samp{latin-iso8859-1} @samp{latin-iso8859-15} @samp{latin-iso8859-2}
@samp{latin-iso8859-3} @samp{latin-iso8859-4} @samp{latin-iso8859-9}
@samp{latin-iso8859-13} @samp{latin-iso8859-16}

The follow charsets are Latin variants which are not understood by
@pkgname{}.  In addition, many of the Asian language standards provide
ASCII, at least, and sometimes other Latin characters.  None of these
are identified with their ISO 8859 equivalents.

@samp{vietnamese-viscii-lower}
@samp{vietnamese-viscii-upper}

@item Other character sets

@samp{arabic-1-column}
@samp{arabic-2-column}
@samp{arabic-digit}
@samp{arabic-iso8859-6}
@samp{chinese-big5-1}
@samp{chinese-big5-2}
@samp{chinese-cns11643-1}
@samp{chinese-cns11643-2}
@samp{chinese-cns11643-3}
@samp{chinese-cns11643-4}
@samp{chinese-cns11643-5}
@samp{chinese-cns11643-6}
@samp{chinese-cns11643-7}
@samp{chinese-gb2312}
@samp{chinese-isoir165}
@samp{cyrillic-iso8859-5}
@samp{ethiopic}
@samp{greek-iso8859-7}
@samp{hebrew-iso8859-8}
@samp{ipa}
@samp{japanese-jisx0208}
@samp{japanese-jisx0208-1978}
@samp{japanese-jisx0212}
@samp{katakana-jisx0201}
@samp{korean-ksc5601}
@samp{sisheng}
@samp{thai-tis620}
@samp{thai-xtis}

@item Non-graphic charsets

@samp{control-1}
@end table

@table @strong
@item No conversion

Some of these coding systems may specify EOL conventions.  Note that
@samp{iso-8859-1} is a no-conversion coding system, not an ISO 2022
coding system.  Although @pkgname{} attempts to compensate for this, it
is possible that the @samp{iso-8859-1} coding system will behave
differently from other ISO 8859 coding systems.

@samp{binary} @samp{no-conversion} @samp{raw-text} @samp{iso-8859-1}

@item Latin coding systems

These coding systems are all single-byte, 8-bit ISO 2022 coding systems,
combining ASCII in the GL register (bytes with high-bit clear) and an
extended Latin character set in the GR register (bytes with high-bit set).

@samp{iso-8859-15} @samp{iso-8859-2} @samp{iso-8859-3} @samp{iso-8859-4}
@samp{iso-8859-9} @samp{iso-8859-13} @samp{iso-8859-14} @samp{iso-8859-16}

These coding systems are single-byte, 8-bit coding systems that do not
conform to international standards.  They should be avoided in all
potentially multilingual contexts, including any text distributed over
the Internet and World Wide Web.

@samp{windows-1251}

@item Multilingual coding systems

The following ISO-2022-based coding systems are useful for multilingual
text.

@samp{ctext} @samp{iso-2022-lock} @samp{iso-2022-7} @samp{iso-2022-7bit}
@samp{iso-2022-7bit-ss2} @samp{iso-2022-8} @samp{iso-2022-8bit-ss2}

XEmacs also supports Unicode with the Mule-UCS package.  These are the
preferred coding systems for multilingual use.  (There is a possible
exception for texts that mix several Asian ideographic character sets.)

@samp{utf-16-be} @samp{utf-16-be-no-signature} @samp{utf-16-le}
@samp{utf-16-le-no-signature} @samp{utf-7} @samp{utf-7-safe}
@samp{utf-8} @samp{utf-8-ws}

Development versions of XEmacs (the 21.5 series) support Unicode
internally, with (at least) the following coding systems implemented:

@samp{utf-16-be} @samp{utf-16-be-bom} @samp{utf-16-le}
@samp{utf-16-le-bom} @samp{utf-8} @samp{utf-8-bom}

@item Asian ideographic languages

The following coding systems are based on ISO 2022, and are more or less
suitable for encoding multilingual texts.  They all can represent ASCII
at least, and sometimes several other foreign character sets, without
resort to arbitrary ISO 2022 designations.  However, these subsets are
not identified with the corresponding national standards in XEmacs Mule.

@samp{chinese-euc} @samp{cn-big5} @samp{cn-gb-2312} @samp{gb2312}
@samp{hz} @samp{hz-gb-2312} @samp{old-jis} @samp{japanese-euc}
@samp{junet} @samp{euc-japan} @samp{euc-jp} @samp{iso-2022-jp}
@samp{iso-2022-jp-1978-irv} @samp{iso-2022-jp-2} @samp{euc-kr}
@samp{korean-euc} @samp{iso-2022-kr} @samp{iso-2022-int-1}

The following coding systems cannot be used for general multilingual
text and do not cooperate well with other coding systems.

@samp{big5} @samp{shift_jis}

@item Other languages

The following coding systems are based on ISO 2022.  Though none of them
provides any Latin characters beyond ASCII, XEmacs Mule allows (and up
to 21.4 defaults to) use of ISO 2022 control sequences to designate
other character sets for inclusion the text.

@samp{iso-8859-5} @samp{iso-8859-7} @samp{iso-8859-8}
@samp{ctext-hebrew}

The following are character sets that do not conform to ISO 2022 and
thus cannot be safely used in a multilingual context.

@samp{alternativnyj} @samp{koi8-r} @samp{tis-620} @samp{viqr}
@samp{viscii} @samp{vscii}

@item Special coding systems

Mule uses the following coding systems for special purposes.

@samp{automatic-conversion} @samp{undecided} @samp{escape-quoted}

@samp{escape-quoted} is especially important, as it is used internally
as the coding system for autosaved data.

The following coding systems are aliases for others, and are used for
communication with the host operating system.

@samp{file-name} @samp{keyboard} @samp{terminal}

@end table

Mule detection of coding systems is actually limited to detection of
classes of coding systems called @dfn{coding categories}.  These coding
categories are identified by the ISO 2022 control sequences they use, if
any, by their conformance to ISO 2022 restrictions on code points that
may be used, and by characteristic patterns of use of 8-bit code points.

@samp{no-conversion}
@samp{utf-8}
@samp{ucs-4}
@samp{iso-7}
@samp{iso-lock-shift}
@samp{iso-8-1}
@samp{iso-8-2}
@samp{iso-8-designate}
@samp{shift-jis}
@samp{big5}


@node Internals, , Charsets and Coding Systems, Top
@chapter Internals

No internals documentation yet.

@file{latin-unity-utils.el} provides one utility function.

@defun latin-unity-dump-tables

Dump the temporary table created by loading @file{latin-unity-utils.el}
to @file{latin-unity-tables.el}.  Loading the latter file initializes
@samp{latin-unity-equivalences}.
@end defun

@c end of latin-unity.texi

