Re: M-<function-key> vs. ESC <function-key>

[Miles Bader]

Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:
>     >     More specifically, when I type Meta-left at Emacs running in
>     >     xterm it receives the key sequence [?\e ?\e ?O ?D], which
>     >     gets translated to [?\e left] through function-key-map.
>
>     In which way?  What is the expected behaviour?
>
> That Meta-left turns into ESC left is strange.

What other character-sequence should xterm send?  I guess it can set the
high bit for meta-fied single-character keys, but it's a bit unclear
what it should do for keys that send escape sequences, so prepending an
ESC seems as good as anything...

Maybe emacs ought to directly handle such "ESC ESC ..." sequences as
independent function key bindings, since it really seems like that's
what they are; e.g., add the translation ("ESC ESC O D" -> [\M-left]) to
function-key-map.

-Miles
-- 
We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
-Oscar Wilde