C-u C-x (

[Luc Teirlinck]

C-u C-x ( converts a string into a vector without doing the necessary
converting of the meta modifier bit from the 2^7 bit to the 2^27 bit.

Do emacs-21.3.50 -q --no-site-file --eval '(blink-cursor-mode 0)'

Go to the beginning of the scratch buffer.

C-x ( M-f M-f C-x )
C-x C-k n tf RETURN
End of buffer.
M-x insert-kbd-macro tf RETURN

Result:

(fset 'tf
   "\346\346")

as expected.

Beginning of buffer.

C-u C-x ( M-f M-f C-x )
C-x C-k n ff RETURN
End of buffer.
M-x insert-kbd-macro ff RETURN

Result:

(fset 'ff
   [?\346 ?\346 ?\M-f ?\M-f])

The string has been converted in a vector, but the modifier bit has
not been converted.

Beginning of buffer.
C-x e

The result is as expected from the above fset form.  (For reasons not
related to bugs in Emacs, I could not yank the resulting ligatures in
my mail buffer.)

While it is obvious what is going on, the problem appears to be in the
C code, and, at present, I feel uncomfortable playing around with
Emacs' C code.

Sincerely,

Luc.