GNU Info

Info Node: (emacs)International Chars

(emacs)International Chars


Next: Enabling Multibyte Up: International
Enter node , (file) or (file)node

Introduction to International Character Sets
============================================

   The users of international character sets and scripts have
established many more-or-less standard coding systems for storing
files.  Emacs internally uses a single multibyte character encoding, so
that it can intermix characters from all these scripts in a single
buffer or string.  This encoding represents each non-ASCII character as
a sequence of bytes in the range 0200 through 0377.  Emacs translates
between the multibyte character encoding and various other coding
systems when reading and writing files, when exchanging data with
subprocesses, and (in some cases) in the `C-q' command (Note: Multibyte
Conversion).

   The command `C-h h' (`view-hello-file') displays the file
`etc/HELLO', which shows how to say "hello" in many languages.  This
illustrates various scripts.  If some characters can't be displayed on
your terminal, they appear as `?' or as hollow boxes (Note:
Undisplayable Characters).

   Keyboards, even in the countries where these character sets are used,
generally don't have keys for all the characters in them.  So Emacs
supports various "input methods", typically one for each script or
language, to make it convenient to type them.

   The prefix key `C-x <RET>' is used for commands that pertain to
multibyte characters, coding systems, and input methods.


automatically generated by info2www version 1.2.2.9