[tip/offtopic] A function to describe the characters of a word at point

[Juan Manuel Macías]

Sorry for the slight offtopic.

Since Unicode and character issues come up here from time to time, I'm
sharing this 'homemade' function that I wrote a long time ago for my
work, in case someone finds it useful. It Shows a brief descriptive list
of all characters in a word at point. Each character includes the
Unicode name, code, and canonical decomposition. Example:

ἄρχοντα >>

ἄ (#1f04) ... GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA ... descomp: #1f00 
#301
ρ (#3c1) ... GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO ... descomp: #3c1
χ (#3c7) ... GREEK SMALL LETTER CHI ... descomp: #3c7
ο (#3bf) ... GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON ... descomp: #3bf
ν (#3bd) ... GREEK SMALL LETTER NU ... descomp: #3bd
τ (#3c4) ... GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU ... descomp: #3c4
α (#3b1) ... GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA ... descomp: #3b1


#+begin_src emacs-lisp
  (defun describe-chars-word-at-point ()
    (interactive)
    (setq chars-in-word nil)
    (if
        (not (current-word t t))
        (error "Not in a word at point...")
      (let
          ((word (current-word t t)))
        (save-excursion
          (with-temp-buffer
            (insert word)
            (goto-char (point-min))
            (while (re-search-forward "\\(.\\)" nil t)
              (let* ((char-name (save-excursion
                                  (backward-char)
                                  (get-char-code-property (char-after (point)) 
'name)))
                     (char-desc (save-excursion
                                  (backward-char)
                                  (get-char-code-property (char-after (point)) 
'decomposition)))
                     (char-format (concat (match-string 1) "\s" "("
                                          (format "#%x" (string-to-char 
(match-string 1)))
                                          ")\s...\s" char-name 
"\s...\sdecomp:\s"
                                          (mapconcat (lambda (cod)
                                                       (format "#%x" cod))
                                                     char-desc " "))))
                (push char-format chars-in-word)))
            (when (get-buffer "*chars in word*")
              (kill-buffer "*chars in word*"))
            (get-buffer-create "*chars in word*")
            (set-buffer "*chars in word*")
            (insert (mapconcat 'identity
                               (reverse chars-in-word) "\n"))
            (view-mode)
            (temp-buffer-window-show "*chars in word*"
                                     '((display-buffer-below-selected 
display-buffer-at-bottom)
                                       (inhibit-same-window . t)
                                       (window-height . fit-window-to-buffer))))
          (pop-to-buffer "*chars in word*")))))
#+end_src