Renaming files with strange characters in dired-mode [was: Re: control character file names]

[Noah]

Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 05:59:02 -0800, Noah <admin2 at enabled.com> wrote:
>>> If you have customized `dired-listing-switches' try reverting it to a
>>> simpler set of options, like:
>>>
>>>     (setq-default dired-listing-switches "-lFa")
>>>
>>> The -b and -B options tend to confuse dired about what the *real*
>>> filename is, and may trigger this sort of error.
>> thanks I placed that setq option in my .emacs and that works for
>> renaming files and directories containing control character.  I am
>> unable to rename a directory that has nine '?'.
>>
>> What setq modification will allow emacs to change those type filenames?
> 
> This seems like a dired problem.  Are the characters _really_ the
> question mark character, or are they merely characters that are
> un-displayable in the current coding system?
> 
> What do you see when you move the point on that filename and then type
> `C-u C-x ='?  If the characters are really the question mark, then the
> informational buffer that pops up should include something like this:

noah at tsunami:/mnt/mybook-music$ ls -lB | less
total 1778688
drwxr-xr-x   3 noah noah         0 2005-01-09 15:26 ?????????
-rwx------   1 noah noah   1841776 2007-12-13 19:57 
00_arditi-standards_of_triumph-2006-cd-amrc.jpg
-rwx------   1 noah noah   3223290 2007-12-13 20:02 
00_arditi-standards_of_triumph-2006-front-amrc.jpg
-rwx------   1 noah noah   2989502 2007-12-13 20:07 
00_arditi-standards_of_triumph-2006-inlay1-amrc.jpg


Here is what is shown in emacs:

  character: ? (63, #o77, #x3f, U+003F)
     charset: ascii (ASCII (ISO646 IRV))
  code point: #x3F
      syntax: . 	which means: punctuation
    category: a:ASCII graphic characters 32-126 (ISO646 IRV:1983[4/0]) 
l:Latin
buffer code: #x3F
   file code: #x3F (encoded by coding system mule-utf-8)
     display: by this font (glyph code)
      -Adobe-Courier-Medium-R-Normal--12-120-75-75-M-70-ISO8859-1 (#x3F)

There are text properties here:
   dired-filename       t
   face                 dired-directory
   fontified            t
   help-echo            "mouse-2: visit this file in other window"
   mouse-face           highlight



> 
> ,-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> |         character: ? (63, #o77, #x3f)
> | preferred charset: ascii (ASCII (ISO646 IRV))
> |        code point: 0x3F
> |            syntax: . 	which means: punctuation
> |          category: a:ASCII
> | ASCII graphic characters 32-126 (ISO646 IRV:1983[4/0]) l:Latin r:Roman
> | Japanese roman
> |       buffer code: #x3F
> |         file code: #x3F (encoded by coding system utf-8-emacs-unix)
> |           display: terminal code #x3F
> |
> | Character code properties: customize what to show
> |   name: QUESTION MARK
> |   general-category: Po (Punctuation, Other)
> |
> | There are text properties here:
> |   fontified            t
> |
> `-----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ASCII code 63 (octal #o77, hex #x3f) in this case is the question-mark
> character.
> 
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