Emacs automatically adding BOM to XML file

emacsunicode

This appears to be related to this discussion but I have exactly the opposite use case. I do not wish to insert a BOM but emacs appears to be inserting one in XML mode (without even being in hexl-mode). I am using GNU Emacs 23.3.1.

I have the following XML file:

$ cat a.xml 
<?xml encoding="UTF-16"?><a/>
$ xxd a.xml 
0000000: 3c3f 786d 6c20 656e 636f 6469 6e67 3d22  <?xml encoding="
0000010: 5554 462d 3136 223f 3e3c 612f 3e0a       UTF-16"?><a/>.

The file does not contain a BOM as can be seen.
When I try to open it with emacs a.xml this is what I see:
enter image description here

When I then switch to hexl-mode it appears that a BOM has been inserted:
enter image description here

This happens even if I start Emacs with emacs -Q.

Best Answer

The solution is to load the file with find-file-literally.

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You create a mode hook, which replaces lambda with the Greek character.

   (defun sm-greek-lambda ()
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           (0 (progn (compose-region (match-beginning 0) (match-end 0)
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           nil))))))

Then you add this hook to your mode:

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How to create a Emacs file that looks/feels likes the Emacs start up page

Emacs doesn't come with a mode that can create all those effects (although you can get some of them with Enriched mode). You'd have to write Lisp code to create the page you want.

The actual startup page is created by the function fancy-startup-screen in the file startup.el. You can look at that to see how it does what it does. You'll probably want to read the Emacs Display chapter of the Emacs Lisp Reference Manual.

Note: You can display the startup screen at any time by typing M-: (fancy-startup-screen) <ENTER>. (You can't use M-x because it's not marked as an interactive function.) There's also an "About" screen that is very similar, which can be displayed with "Help > About Emacs" in the menu bar or C-h C-a or M-x display-about-screen. (fancy-about-screen is the function that actually creates that screen.)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Emacs: How to insert ‘λ’ instead of ‘lambda’ in Scheme mode

How to create a Emacs file that looks/feels likes the Emacs start up page

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