Broken charset=utf-16be articles with Gnus and Emacs 21.3

[Reiner Steib]

In GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2003-03-19 on ni
configured using `configure  --prefix=/import/xtra/emacs/RC'
Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: POSIX
  value of $LC_CTYPE: en_US.ISO_8859-1
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: C
  locale-coding-system: iso-latin-1
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

Gnus v5.9.0
GNU Emacs 21.3.1 (i686-pc-linux-gnu, X toolkit, Xaw3d scroll bars)
 of 2003-03-19 on ni
200 news.uni-ulm.de DNEWS Version  5.6f3,, S0, posting OK 

Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:

Actions to reproduce the bug:

- Start Gnus `M-x gnus RET' and compose an article `a'.

- Switch to TeX input method: `M-x set-input-method RET TeX RET'

- Enter some characters:

  \sigma ä (a with diaeresis) \omega
  (Note: \sigma and \omega (without ä) is not sufficient.)
  
  .. *or* ...

  \sigma \omega \alpha \o \int

- Preview `M-m P' (or `C-u M-m P') or send the message.

  The preview (and the outgoing message) will be encoded with
  "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-16be" and it will not be
  readable with Gnus and most other MUAs or newsreaders.

  I've been told (-> Simon Krahnke) that the result isn't even correct
  UTF-16.

Expected behavior:

- The article should be encoded with
  "Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8".

Note: I'm sending this message with a different version of Gnus, so
don't be confused when looking at my User-Agent header.  FWIW, the
same bug also happens with Oort Gnus from CVS.  With Emacs 21.1 / Gnus
5.9.0 [1] and with Emacs 21.2 / Oort Gnus v0.17 [2] we have the
expected behavior [1].  Therefore I think this is a bug in Emacs 21.3,
but I'm not sure (Cc-ing bugs@gnus.org).

Additional confusion: Replying to [1] (with full citation), I get
utf-8 [3], but copying the non-Latin charaters into this buffer
results in utf-16be in the preview.  I also get utf-16be, when I reply
to [2] and delete the lines containing the word "Blindtext".

Bye, Reiner.

[1] Reported by Simon Krahnke: <news:8765q3nwm9.fsf@xts.gnuu.de>
    (Newsgroups: de.comm.software.gnus)

[2] Reported by Mark Trettin:
    <news:dcsg.m3of3vcgwr.fsf@beldin.mt743742.dialup.rwth-aachen.de>
    (Newsgroups: de.comm.software.gnus)

[3] <news:v9d6kaig3n.fsf@marauder.physik.uni-ulm.de>
    (Newsgroups: de.comm.software.gnus)
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---ooO-(_)-Ooo--- PGP key available via WWW   http://rsteib.home.pages.de/