Question: completion listing

Question: completion listing

[Sven Wischnowsky]

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If you have a file `Maße', this appears in a completion list as
`Ma\M-_e' since metafied characters are treated specially.

I vaguely remember a discussion about this but I don't remember why it 
was decided to print them in this way (and I mean metafied characters
that are printable). Or was this just an oversight? Giving people
using such filenames what they deserve?

Can anyone remind me?

Bye
 Sven


--
Sven Wischnowsky                         wischnow@informatik.hu-berlin.de

Re: Question: completion listing

[Peter Stephenson]

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Sven Wischnowsky wrote:
> 
> If you have a file `Maße', this appears in a completion list as
> `Ma\M-_e' since metafied characters are treated specially.
> 
> I vaguely remember a discussion about this but I don't remember why it 
> was decided to print them in this way (and I mean metafied characters
> that are printable). Or was this just an oversight? Giving people
> using such filenames what they deserve?

It was neither, really:  it's to do with locales.  If your locale says
that scharfes S is a letter, then it appears as a letter in the
listing; if not, not.  Arguably there could be some internal way of
by-passing it.  I produced an FAQ entry on the subject (q.v.), but
there was some suggestion at the time this wasn't really adequate.
(Surprise:  the AIX system here doesn't have locales installed.)
I've appended it as it now stands for convenience.  Maybe a simple
option (EIGHT_BIT_CHARS or whatever) to cover standard cases like
ISO-8859-* would be a better idea?


3.7: How do I make the completion list use eight bit characters?

  A traditional UNIX environment (character terminal and ASCII
  character sets) is not sufficient to be able to handle non-ASCII
  characters, and there are so many possible enhancements that in
  general this is hard.  However, if you have something like an xterm
  using a standard character set like ISO-8859-1 (which is often the
  default for xterm), read on.  You should also note question
  3.5 on the subject of eight bit characters.

  You are probably creating files with names including non-ASCII
  accented characters, and find they show up in the completion list as
  \M-i or something such.  This is because the library routines
  (not zsh itself) which test whether a character is printable have
  replied that it is not; zsh has simply found a way to show them
  anyway.

  The answer, under a modern POSIXy operating system, is to find a
  locale where these are treated as printable characters.  Zsh has
  handling for locales built in and will recognise when you set a
  relevant variable. You need to look in /usr/lib/locale to find one
  which suits you; the subdirectories correspond to the locale names.
  The simplest possibility is likely to be en_US, so that the simplest
  answer to your problem is to set

    LC_CTYPE=en_US

  when your terminal is capable of showing eight bit characters.  If
  you only have a default domain (called C), you may need to have some
  additional files installed on your system.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@ibmth.df.unipi.it>       Tel: +39 050 844536
WWW:  http://www.ifh.de/~pws/
Dipartimento di Fisica, Via Buonarroti 2, 56127 Pisa, Italy

Re: Question: completion listing

[Sven Wischnowsky]

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Peter Stephenson wrote:

> Sven Wischnowsky wrote:
> > 
> > If you have a file `Maße', this appears in a completion list as
> > `Ma\M-_e' since metafied characters are treated specially.
> > 
> > I vaguely remember a discussion about this but I don't remember why it 
> > was decided to print them in this way (and I mean metafied characters
> > that are printable). Or was this just an oversight? Giving people
> > using such filenames what they deserve?
> 
> It was neither, really:  it's to do with locales.  If your locale says
> that scharfes S is a letter, then it appears as a letter in the
> listing; if not, not.  Arguably there could be some internal way of
> by-passing it.  I produced an FAQ entry on the subject (q.v.), but
> there was some suggestion at the time this wasn't really adequate.

Oops, RTM, sorry!

> (Surprise:  the AIX system here doesn't have locales installed.)

Neither has my DU4.0d...

> I've appended it as it now stands for convenience.  Maybe a simple
> option (EIGHT_BIT_CHARS or whatever) to cover standard cases like
> ISO-8859-* would be a better idea?

Yes, I think this would be helpful. Maybe I'll find some time
somewhere...


Bye
 Sven


--
Sven Wischnowsky                         wischnow@informatik.hu-berlin.de

Re: Question: completion listing

[Sven Wischnowsky]

I wrote:

> > I've appended it as it now stands for convenience.  Maybe a simple
> > option (EIGHT_BIT_CHARS or whatever) to cover standard cases like
> > ISO-8859-* would be a better idea?
> 
> Yes, I think this would be helpful. Maybe I'll find some time
> somewhere...

It was already there (of course ;-): `setopt PRINTEIGHTBIT'.

Maybe we should put this in the FAQ.

Bye
 Sven


--
Sven Wischnowsky                         wischnow@informatik.hu-berlin.de

Re: Question: completion listing

[Peter Stephenson]

Sven Wischnowsky wrote:
> It was already there (of course ;-): `setopt PRINTEIGHTBIT'.

Incredible.  I've had this long article on locales in the FAQ for some
time now and nobody, certainly not me, ever found the simple answer.

3.7: How do I make the completion list use eight bit characters?

  If you are sure your terminal handles this, the easiest way is to
  set the option PRINT_EIGHT_BIT.  In principle, this will work
  automatically if your computer uses the `locale' system and your
  locale variables are set properly, as zsh understands this.
  However, it is quite complicated, so if it isn't already set up,
  trying the option is a lot easier.

-- 
Peter Stephenson <pws@ibmth.df.unipi.it>       Tel: +39 050 844536
WWW:  http://www.ifh.de/~pws/
Dipartimento di Fisica, Via Buonarroti 2, 56127 Pisa, Italy