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In XEmacs 21.4 (patch 4) "Artificial Intelligence" [Lucid] (i386-debian-linux,
M
ule) of Mon Jul 30 2001 on eeyore
configured using `configure --with-sound=native,esd '--cflags=-O2 -g -Wall ' --w
ith-x11 --extra-verbose --with-site-lisp --statedir=/var/lib --infodir=/usr/shar
e/info/xemacs-21.4.4 --prefix=/usr --error-checking=none --debug=no --dynamic --
without-postgresql --with-gpm=no --with_menubars=lucid --with_scrollbars=lucid -
-with_dialogs=athena --docdir=/usr/lib/xemacs-21.4.4/i386-debian-linux/mule/ --w
ith-mule --with-canna=no --with-wnn=no --with-xim=xlib --with-xfs '--package-pat
h=~/.xemacs:~/.xemacs/packages::/usr/share/xemacs21/packages:/usr/share/xemacs21
/mule-packages:/usr/share/xemacs21/site-packages' i386-debian-linux'
Please describe exactly what actions triggered the bug
and the precise symptoms of the bug:
In VM, email containing escape characters (i.e. most
Japanese email) can get mangled when the folder is
auto-saved. If you recover from an auto-saved session then
you are likely to see surplus escape characters everywhere.
You don't need a Japanese input method to reproduce this.
Try this in VM:
1. Send a mail to yourself with a single escape character
(looks like ^[) - press Ctrl-Q then Escape - in the message
body.
2. Fetch new mail.
3. Do M-x do-auto-save.
4. Examine the file #INBOX# using "less" or a similar tool.
You should find that the escape character has been doubled
(now there are two of them). Although it is not doubled
when the inbox is saved normally (this is only an auto-save
thing). And I've only seen this happen in VM (I've tried
auto-saving a text file and cannot reproduce it that way).
The bug is more serious than the above description would
seem, because it mangles messages in ISO-2022 format (most
often used by Japanese). When recovering from an autosaved
session, such messages will pick up surplus escape
characters all over the place. If this is done several
times, and the messages containing escape characters are not
examined by the user, then the escape characters could
multiply up unnoticed (exponential growth - doubles every
time) and significantly increase the size of the inbox,
causing thrashing and other problems. This happened to me
quite a while ago, and I only now understand why.
Recent keystrokes:
down down down down down down down down down down down
down down down down down down down down down down down
down down down down down down down down down down C-home
C-x b I N TAB RET prior next C-x b RET C-x b RET C-x
b RET up down up C-x k RET up down C-x b RET down up
m s s b 2 2 button1 button1up C-q ESC C-SPC C-end C-w
RET button1 button1up home C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k
C-c C-c g M-x d o - a u TAB RET misc-user C-] misc
-user
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--
Silas S Brown, St John's College Cambridge UK
http://www.cus.cam.ac.uk/~ssb22
"He that is hastening to get riches will not remain innocent"
- Proverbs 28:20