Re: replacing hexl-mode with nhexl-mode?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: "Alfred M. Szmidt" <ams@gnu.org>
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2022 03:07:25 -0400
> 
>    Btw, some problems can be seen almost right away.  Try this:
> 
>      C-x C-f etc/HELLO
>      M-x nhexl-mode RET
> 
>    The display is much less tidy, to say the least, than with hexl.el.
>    It looks like the fancy display of LF is the culprit, at least on my
>    system (font issues?)  Now try scrolling with C-n, and you will see
>    stuttering that isn't there with hexl.
> 
>    There's a also a larger, more subtle problem: nhexl shows you the
>    internal representation of the buffer text, not what's in the file on
>    disk; this matters a lot when the file has non-ASCII text.  You need
>    to be aware of that and visit the file literally if you want to avoid
>    this issue (there's no nhexl-find-file command).
> 
>    Finally, nhexl causes display problems when invoked in buffers
>    text using bidirectional scripts.  Try this:
> 
>      C-x C-f etc/tutorials/TUTORIAL.he RET
>      M-x nhexl-mode RET
> 
> These both seem to be because of not visiting the file literally;
> something that hexl-mode will do automatically.  That shouldn't be to
> hard to fix.

Feel free to fix that, but at least on my system not all of the issues
I see are solved when I visit the file literally: the jagged display
at the right is still there.  I guess it's somehow caused by the glyph
used to display the LF character (and I expect the same to happen for
TABs), but it is still ugly and should be fixed, IMO.

Another missing feature is the ability to mark and copy the hex
display part.  hexl supports it, but nhexl doesn't, it seems: it can
only copy from the right column, where the actual file's contents are
listed, but not from the hex display part.

I also don't see the equivalents of hexl commands to go to an address,
and to move by words and pages.  Did I miss them?

>    Lots of fun!
> 
> I'm not sure I follow.

I alluded to the funny display and cursor motion in my last example.