ob-plantuml: Proposal to add 'jar-args' customizable variable

[Dejan Josifović]

Hi all,

I use PlantUML integration in org-mode for years now, but only
recently I came across some unwanted behavior.

Using PlantUML from jar (org-plantuml-jar-path variable) and latest 
org-mode, I wanted to render a diagram containing some Unicode 
characters (such as '⊥' and '∀'), but the end image had some gibberish 
instead. However,
trying this from a standalone file using plantuml-mode[1], the end image 
rendered correctly. Here is some sample code which can reproduce the issue:

#+BEGIN_SRC plantuml :file ./test.png
A -> B: ∀ characters display correctly is ⊥
#+END_SRC

Comparing ob-plantuml.el and plantuml-mode.el files I found what is the 
problem. plantuml-mode has a customizable variable for specifying 
arguments when using PlantUML from jar (plantuml-jar-args (list 
"-charset" "UTF-8" ). The charset arguments is what is needed for
the images to render correctly (I confirmed it by implementing it locally).

I was wondering why such variable doesn't exist in ob-plantuml. I have
searched the mailing list archives, confirmed bugs and help page and 
couldn't find anything related.

Does anyone from the community know if such variable was deliberately 
omitted? If so, what is the reason?

If this is indeed a wanted feature, I will be more than happy to provide 
a patch.

[1] https://github.com/skuro/plantuml-mode

Thanks and regards,

--
Dejan Josifović | Дејан Јосифовић
Software engineer | Софтверски инжењер
https://theparanoidtimes.org

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