Re: `.newsrc.eld' saves chinese group name in wrong coding

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

>> I'm not quite sure what is a "unibyte session"
> A.k.a. "emacs --unibyte".

I know that, but I'm not quite sure what it entails.  This discussion is
within the scope of code such as Gnus's, i.e. code which should work
either way.

>> but I think "stay 100% in
>> unibyte" is fairly clear: only use unibyte buffers and strings in the
>> relevant code (while other unrelated buffers and strings may be multibyte).

> I think it's practically impossible to use only unibyte buffers for
> any serious work, and therefore I don't consider this a feasible
> solution.

The operative term there is "in the relevant code".  E.g. Gnus could easily
(as opposed to "practically impossible") use unibyte for all its buffers
and strings.  It's also very common (and often necessary) to use unibyte
buffers and strings to interact with underlying processes or network
connections.  Typically because the data passed back&forth may use mixes of
various encodings.

> If one uses the default multibyte session, using unibyte strings is
> prone to subtle problems as described in this thread.

But those problems are not specific to unibyte, but to the mix of unibyte
and multibyte.  In most packages such as Gnus it's just as hard/impossible
to use only multibyte as it is to use only unibyte.


        Stefan