bug#6473: describe-how-coding-system-was-decided-for-current-buffer

[Štěpán Němec]

jidanni@jidanni.org writes:

> In (info "(emacs) Recognize Coding") do mention how to make emacs say
> just why it chose the coding system it did.
>
> E.g., hide a NULL in a file,
> $ { LC_ALL=zh_TW.UTF-8 date; seq 99; echo -e \\0;} >| /tmp/oo
> $ emacs -Q /tmp/oo
> and watch as the user goes nuts trying to figure out why emacs is not
> showing the file in the usual character set anymore.
>
> Indeed, there should be a
> describe-how-coding-system-was-decided-for-current-buffer
> command.

Well, I doubt there is any way, in general. I see here a broader problem
-- I often find myself wondering where/how a variable was set to its
current value. Something like (or preferably even better than) Vim's
:verbose command, which does precisely that (i.e. reports "Last set from
<filenameorsimilar>" along with the value), would be great. I'm hoping
the apparently-being-worked-upon watch point functionality could be of
some help here.

(Sorry if this seems like hijacking this bug report to you, I just felt
it was relevant.)

    Štěpán