How do I know what charset I used?

How do I know what charset I used?

[lconrad]

I have a Norwegian email correspondent, and we sometimes use words
with Norwegian characters.  For instance, the name of the town he
lives in is Bodx.

When I send these messages, gnus asks me "Character set used in the
article:".   If I hit space, it gives me the choices:

Possible completions are:
cn-big5		iso-2022-int-1	iso-8859-3	iso-8859-8	us-ascii
cn-gb-2312	iso-2022-jp	iso-8859-4	iso-8859-9	viscii
euc-kr		iso-2022-jp-2	iso-8859-5	koi8-r
iso-2022-7bit	iso-8859-1	iso-8859-6	thai-tis620
iso-2022-int-1	iso-8859-2	iso-8859-7	tibetan

There is no indication that there's a default, and the plethora of
choices makes me insecure. 

I usually guess something with iso in the name, since if I write the
word, I am using iso-accents-mode in gnus.  If the word is in a reply
because he typed it in his message, I have no idea what character set
he used.

The characters seem to get transmitted right, even with my wild
guesses, so is this question really necessary?  If so, can there be
some documentation about what the right answer might be? And maybe a
default, for people who know as little as I do about character
encoding?

-- 
Laura (mailto:lconrad@world.std.com , http://www.world.std.com/~lconrad/ )
(617) 661-8097	fax: (801) 365-6574 
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139

Re: How do I know what charset I used?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

lconrad@world.std.com writes:

> I have a Norwegian email correspondent, and we sometimes use words
> with Norwegian characters.  For instance, the name of the town he
> lives in is Bodx.
> 
> When I send these messages, gnus asks me "Character set used in the
> article:".   If I hit space, it gives me the choices:

You're using a non-MULE XEmacs, right?  In that case, it's assumed
that you only want to use a single charset for your mail, and you
should set `message-default-charset' to that charset.  The charset
that covers most of western Europe and the US is `iso-8859-1'.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen