Re: Understanding how to specify UTF-8

[Will Parsons]

Jason Rumney wrote:
> On Saturday, 8 April 2017 07:43:58 UTC+8, Will Parsons  wrote:
>> I want to always use Unicode/UTF-8 unless otherwise specified.  I've noticed
>> that I've attempted to do this in my .emacs file in two separate ways on two
>> separate platforms:
>> 
>> 1)  (setq-default buffer-file-coding-system 'utf-8-unix)
>> 
>> 2)  (set-language-environment "UTF-8")
>> 
>> Both seem to work, but I'm wondering if there are subtle differences between
>> the two that I should be aware of.
>
> The first only sets the default coding system for Files.
>
> The second sets it for for everything, including system clipboard, file 
> names, process I/O ...
>
> On modern GNU/Linux, Mac or other Posix based OS's, you probably want 
> everything in UTF-8, so the latter is correct. 
>
> On Windows, the system itself does not support UTF-8 fully, so the former is 
> safer. For clipboard and file names on Windows, the latest versions of Emacs 
> will use Unicode regardless of what you specify for the coding system, it is 
> really only process I/O that is the problem - Cygwin and Mingw apps may 
> support UTF-8 I/O, but native Windows apps (including the cmd.exe shell) can 
> have severe difficulties with it.

Thank you for this detailed answer.  Interestingly enough, I have them
reversed in my Unix vs Windows configurations.

-- 
Will