Douglas Allan Tutty wrote: > On Mon, Mar 19, 2007 at 04:02:51PM -0400, Mitch Wiedemann wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> I'm wondering is anyone knows how I can configure my Vim (7.0) to >> highlight ASCII characters outside of the 0-128 range. >> >> I mostly write PHP/XHTML, and sometimes I have to copy content from word >> processed documents, and that sometimes inserts odd, but otherwise not >> visually detectable characters (like strange m-dashes, dashes, and >> single-quotes). >> >> Is there a way I can have these sorts of characters highlighted so I can >> replace them with their HTML counterparts? >> >> Thanks in advance. I'm not currently subscribed to the Vim user list, >> or I'd ask them. :) >> > > As ASCII is only 7 bits, which makes for a maximum of a 128 character > set, what you ask for doesn't exist. (see man ascii) > > (continuing to reference man ascii) > > The linux default 8-bit character set is 8859-1. I suppose it depends > on what character set you're using vs what character set the word > processor was using. > > I'm sorry to hear that the word processor is broken :) > > I'm sure there is a way to do what you ask; computers can do anything > you tell them to do; vim can do anything. > > What about writing a filter to remove such codes from the file before > you bring it into vim? If all you want is ASCII, it should be trivial > to reject with sed. Hopefully someone who knows sed can give you a > recipe. > > Then again, the same recipe can probably be coded as a vim macro, but > I'd rather know that the contents of a file are clean before I bring it > into a document I'm working on. > > Good luck, > > Doug. >
Thanks. As you can tell, I'm just at the edge of understanding the problem I'm trying to solve. I'll have a look at 'man ascii'. The problem with the filter method is that I would be afraid of loosing content! I'd rather have the "weird" apostrophe present and highlighted than missing altogether. My editors would have a cow if their punctuation went missing! :) I've posted the same question to the Vim users list. I'll report back if I find a suitable solution. -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
