Inconsistant Delete Key

[CarlC]

Hi, all. I'm sure this subject has been talked about, ad nauseum, but I have
a new take on it.

I am running emacs 20.7.1. I had the usual problem with the delete key not
doing a delete-char. I have somewhat corrected the problem in ~/.emacs,
although it seems a kludge to me. My problem is that when I start emacs with
a filename argument, sometimes the delete key does a delete-char, and other
times it does a backward-delete-char. This seems to be dependent on the file
that I initial open from the command line. I am at a loss as to this
inconsistancy.

My default .emacs file had:

;; Set up the keyboard so the delete key on both the regular keyboard
;; and the keypad delete the character under the cursor and to the right
;; under X, instead of the default, backspace behavior.
(global-set-key [delete] 'delete-char)
(global-set-key [kp-delete] 'delete-char)

I added:

(global-set-key "\C-h" 'backward-delete-char)
(global-set-key "\C-?" 'delete-char)

Thanks, in advance, for any help.