RE: single-key-description no good for Japanese and Chinese chars

[Drew Adams]

Also, shouldn't the form of the string output by `single-key-description' be
a possible input to `read-kbd-macro', in order to get back the key sequence?
That is, isn't there a conventional key description format that should be
followed?

For example, the Elisp manual says this about `read-kbd-macro':

 "it can also be used as a rough inverse for `key-description'.  You
  call it with a string containing key descriptions, separated by
  spaces; it returns a string or vector containing the corresponding
  events.  (This may or may not be a single valid key sequence,
  depending on what events you use; *note Keymap Terminology::.)"

BTW - I followed the cross reference, but I'm not sure that it explains what
is said in parentheses. I don't really see an explanation that lets you know
under what circumstances `read-kbd-macro' returns a valid key sequence.

Perhaps I'm not looking in the right place, but I would like to find an
inverse for `key-description' that works in all cases, and I'd like to
understand the cases where `read-kbd-macro' does not do that.

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Drew Adams [mailto:address@hidden
    Sent: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 11:18 AM
    To: Emacs-Pretest-Bug
    Subject: single-key-description no good for Japanese and Chinese chars


    `single-key-description' returns the exact same key description for
    each key in the asian character sets (Japanese, Chinese, etc.).

    For example, for the different input events (keys) 20864 and 20992,
    the exact same description is given: "Character set JISX0208.1978
    (Japanese): ISO-IR-42".

    This is useless. The single-key description must be unique for a given
    key. If nothing else, the event value should be included in the
    description: e.g. "Character set JISX0208.1978 (Japanese): ISO-IR-42 -
    20864".

    I have code, for instance, that lets you complete key sequences.  The
    completion candidates are the `single-key-descriptions' of the key
    sequences typed so far.  At top level, they are the descriptions of
    all top-level bindings and commands.  For example, this is a possible
    completion:

     "a = self-insert-command"

    And so is this:

     "Character set JISX0208.1978 (Japanese): ISO-IR-42" =
    self-insert-command"

    And this:

     "Character set Big5 (Level-1) A141-C67F = self-insert-command"

    However, *all* characters in each of those Japanese and Chinese
    character sets have the exact same key description, so there is no way
    to understand which character corresponds to which description
    (i.e. completion candidate) - they are all the same.

    In sum, the `single-key-description' is not a key description at all
    in these cases; it is a character-set description.  Each key
    description should be unique.  Imagine if all ASCII characters had the
    same key description: "ASCII character set" - you can see that it
    would be useless.


    In GNU Emacs 22.0.50.1 (i386-msvc-nt5.1.2600)
     of 2006-07-19 on BOS-CTHEWLAP2
    X server distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 5.1.2600
    configured using `configure --with-msvc (12.00)'

    Important settings:
      value of $LC_ALL: nil
      value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
      value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
      value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
      value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
      value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
      value of $LC_TIME: nil
      value of $LANG: ENU
      locale-coding-system: cp1252
      default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

    Major mode: Dired by name

    Minor modes in effect:
      encoded-kbd-mode: t
      tooltip-mode: t
      tool-bar-mode: t
      mouse-wheel-mode: t
      menu-bar-mode: t
      file-name-shadow-mode: t
      global-font-lock-mode: t
      font-lock-mode: t
      blink-cursor-mode: t
      unify-8859-on-encoding-mode: t
      utf-translate-cjk-mode: t
      auto-compression-mode: t
      line-number-mode: t

    Recent input:
    <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <help-echo> <menu-bar>
    <help-menu> <report-emacs-bug>

    Recent messages:
    (C:\Emacs-22-2006-07-19-Fran\bin\emacs.exe -q --no-site-file
    --debug-init C:\drews-lisp-20)
    Loading encoded-kb...done
    For information about the GNU Project and its goals, type C-h C-p.
    Loading dired...
    Loading regexp-opt...done
    Loading dired...done
    Loading emacsbug...done