> > What is (event-to-character event) supposed to return when `event' is > > #<keypress-event backspace> or #<keypress-event delete>? > I don't know what it's supposed to return, but event-to-character > appears to return the symbol's 'ascii-character property. These used > to be set to ?\010 and ?\177 respectively. O.K. The broken code in question looks like: (defun canna-functional-insert-command (arg) "Use input character as a key of complex translation input such as\n\ kana-to-kanji translation." (interactive "*p") (let ((ch)) (if (char-or-char-int-p arg) (setq ch last-command-char) (setq ch (event-to-character last-command-event))) (canna:functional-insert-command2 ch arg) )) The problem appears to be with `last-command-char' being nil.