Re: ncr (numeric character reference) to unicode

[B. T. Raven]

Stephen Berman wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:42:09 -0500 "B. T. Raven" <nihil@nihilo.net> wrote:
>
> > Miles Bader wrote:
> > > "B. T. Raven" <nihil@nihilo.net> writes:
> > > > Does any of you know whether nxhtml has the capability to convert
> > > > sequences like this:
> > > >
> > > > &#1513;&#1473;&#1463;&#1500;&#1493;&#1465;&#1501;.
> > > > (shalom in Hebrew)
> > > The following should work:
> > >
> > >    (defun expand-html-encoded-chars (start end)
> > >      (interactive "r")
> > >      (save-excursion
> > >        (goto-char start)
> > >        (while (re-search-forward "&#\\([0-9]+\\);" end t)
> > >          (replace-match           (char-to-string
> > >            (decode-char 'ucs (string-to-number (match-string 1))) )
> > >           t t))))
> > >
> > > -Miles
> > Thanks, Eli and Miles. The conversion works fine (with uncomposed glyphs, that
> > is, points as separate characters, same as in the html codes). I referenced
> > the command in an alias:
> >
> > (defalias 'xhc 'expand-html-encoded-chars)
> >
> > and then tried to do the same with this function:
> >
> > (defun reverse-string (beg end)
> >   (interactive "r")
> >   (setq str (buffer-substring beg end))
> >   (apply #'string (nreverse (string-to-list str))))
> >
> > but it doesn't seem to work, although it doesn't produce errors in a traceback
> > buffer. What am I missing?
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Ed
>
> Does this do what you want?
>
> (defun reverse-string (beg end)
>   (interactive "r")
>   (xhc beg end)
>   (let* ((beg (region-beginning))
>          (end (region-end))
>          (str1 (buffer-substring beg end))
>          (str2 (apply #'string (nreverse (string-to-list str1)))))
>     (replace-string str1 str2 nil beg end)))
>
> Steve Berman

That would probably do a little more than I want. Miles' expand html 
function is only needed if someone sends these ncr sequences in email. 
Btw, why are beg and end calculated in the function if they are passed 
to it? This almost does what I want:

(defun reverse-bufsubstring (beg end)
  (interactive "r")
  (let* (
         (str1 (buffer-substring beg end))
         (str2 (apply #'string (nreverse (string-to-list str1)))))
    (replace-string str1 str2 nil beg end)))


except that it converts

same
one
as
before

into this:

erofeb
sa
eno
emas

so now that has to be reversed line by line rather than character by 
character. Anyway, all of this is just a kludge until the gurus come up 
with a real bidi functionality.

Thanks again,

Ed