Illegal Byte Sequence

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

I cut and pasted a firefox web site and send it to unix where mailx said it
had an illagal byte sequence. In emacs there were no backslash codes but
removing the ? where apostrophes or bullet points were expected cleared the
problem. So emacs can't see higher level bit codes? How many bits do these
mamalenials need for a bullet point? Is there a workaround? even piping it
thru Cat -v didn't work.

--
Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus
blog: panix.com/~vjp2/ruminatn.htm - = - web: panix.com/~vjp2/vasos.htm
facebook.com/vasjpan2 - linkedin.com/in/vasjpan02 - biostrategist.com
---{Nothing herein constitutes advice. Everything fully disclaimed.}---

[Ben Bacarisse]

vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com writes:

> I cut and pasted a firefox web site and send it to unix where mailx said it
> had an illagal byte sequence. In emacs there were no backslash codes but
> removing the ? where apostrophes or bullet points were expected cleared the
> problem. So emacs can't see higher level bit codes? How many bits do these
> mamalenials need for a bullet point? Is there a workaround? even piping it
> thru Cat -v didn't work.

You describe too many stages at which things can go wrong to know what
the right workaround is. The web site make have not declared the
correct encoding, and the cutting, or the pasting, might have assumed or
used the wrong encoding. The sending to unix (by email?) might have
used the wrong (or no) encoding information.

In my experience, the last stage, reading the file in Emacs is the
reliable one, provided you know what Emacs is telling you in terms of file
coding and so on.

--
Ben.

[vjp...@at.biostrategist.dot.dot.com]

In <877ddla...@bsb.me.uk> by Ben Bacarisse <ben.u...@bsb.me.uk> on Sat, 06 Nov 2021 07:21:18 we perused:
*+-vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com writes:

*+-> I cut and pasted a firefox web site and send it to unix where mailx said it
*+-> had an illagal byte sequence. In emacs there were no backslash codes but
*+-> removing the ? where apostrophes or bullet points were expected cleared the
*+-> problem. So emacs can't see higher level bit codes? How many bits do these
*+-> mamalenials need for a bullet point? Is there a workaround? even piping it
*+-> thru Cat -v didn't work.

*+-You describe too many stages at which things can go wrong to know what
*+-the right workaround is. The web site make have not declared the
*+-correct encoding, and the cutting, or the pasting, might have assumed or
*+-used the wrong encoding. The sending to unix (by email?) might have
*+-used the wrong (or no) encoding information.

*+-In my experience, the last stage, reading the file in Emacs is the
*+-reliable one, provided you know what Emacs is telling you in terms of file
*+-coding and so on.

I copied it to Notepad+ and sent it thru SCP. Normally emacs displays such
things with backslash codes but this time it only used a question mark.

[Ben Bacarisse]

vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com writes:

> In <877ddla...@bsb.me.uk> by Ben Bacarisse <ben.u...@bsb.me.uk> on Sat, 06 Nov 2021 07:21:18 we perused:
> *+-vjp...@at.BioStrategist.dot.dot.com writes:
>
> *+-> I cut and pasted a firefox web site and send it to unix where mailx said it
> *+-> had an illagal byte sequence. In emacs there were no backslash codes but
> *+-> removing the ? where apostrophes or bullet points were expected cleared the
> *+-> problem. So emacs can't see higher level bit codes? How many bits do these
> *+-> mamalenials need for a bullet point? Is there a workaround? even piping it
> *+-> thru Cat -v didn't work.
>
> *+-You describe too many stages at which things can go wrong to know what
> *+-the right workaround is. The web site make have not declared the
> *+-correct encoding, and the cutting, or the pasting, might have assumed or
> *+-used the wrong encoding. The sending to unix (by email?) might have
> *+-used the wrong (or no) encoding information.
>
> *+-In my experience, the last stage, reading the file in Emacs is the
> *+-reliable one, provided you know what Emacs is telling you in terms of file
> *+-coding and so on.
>
> I copied it to Notepad+ and sent it thru SCP. Normally emacs displays such
> things with backslash codes but this time it only used a question
> mark.

I still think it's probably not the last stage where the trouble lies,
so probably not anything that can be fixed in Emacs. Can you use tools
in the browser and in Notepad+ to find out what the character is at each
stage?

--
Ben.