(find-file FILE CODESYS) doesn't set `buffer-file-coding-system' if FILE is a newly created file. I.e. C-u C-x C-f bar RET euc-jp RET will not set `buffer-file-coding-system' to EUC-JP if "bar" is a file which doesn't exist yet but is newly created. See the following example: mfabian＠gregory:~/xemacs-bug$ ls mfabian＠gregory:~/xemacs-bug$ touch foo mfabian＠gregory:~/xemacs-bug$ ls foo mfabian＠gregory:~/xemacs-bug$ xemacs -q -vanilla -batch --eval "(progn (find-file \"foo\" 'euc-jp) (message \"%s\" buffer-file-coding-system))" #<coding_system euc-jp-unix> mfabian＠gregory:~/xemacs-bug$ xemacs -q -vanilla -batch --eval "(progn (find-file \"bar\" 'euc-jp) (message \"%s\" buffer-file-coding-system))" iso-2022-jp mfabian＠gregory:~/xemacs-bug$ I.e. when the existing (but empty) file "foo" was visited, buffer-file-coding-system did get set, but when the not yet existing file "bar" was visited, buffer-file-coding-system did not get set. I did the above test in the following locale: mfabian＠gregory:~/xemacs-bug$ locale LANG=ja_JP LC_CTYPE="ja_JP" LC_NUMERIC="ja_JP" LC_TIME="ja_JP" LC_COLLATE=POSIX LC_MONETARY="ja_JP" LC_MESSAGES="ja_JP" LC_PAPER="ja_JP" LC_NAME="ja_JP" LC_ADDRESS="ja_JP" LC_TELEPHONE="ja_JP" LC_MEASUREMENT="ja_JP" LC_IDENTIFICATION="ja_JP" LC_ALL= mfabian＠gregory:~/xemacs-bug$ -- Mike Fabian <mfabian(a)suse.de&gt; http://www.suse.de/~mfabian 睡眠不足はいい仕事の敵だ。