Re: More confusion about multibyte vs unibyte strings

[Stefan Monnier]

>>> If the search string is multibyte (in my mind this means "multiple bytes
>>> per character", I guess that's where I went wrong), you have to encode
>>
>> In ELisp, "multibyte" means "a sequence of characters", whereas
>> "unibyte" means "a sequence of bytes".
>
> Okay, thanks. I'd thought that distinction was covered by "encoded" vs
> "decoded" strings. Maybe the lesson will stick this time.

There's no reliable way to determine whether a string is decoded (other
than to trace its origin and figure out what the code intended it to
mean).

This said, multibyte/unibyte can be used as an approximation of
decoded/encoded (my own local hacks include signaling errors when
trying to decode a multibyte string or to encode a unibyte string, but
it trips over various places where we do that for legitimate
reasons :-( )


        Stefan