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Subject: bug#70000: 29.2; Grapheme handling incorrect
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I had some terminal breakage the other day when browsing email with
notmuch.  Now a ways down the rabbit hole, it seems this is because
emacs does not correctly handle graphemes.  I found this article here:

https://mitchellh.com/writing/grapheme-clusters-in-terminals

If I paste that gramehe into GUI emacs, it is displayed as two separate
characters, each two columns wide, instead of the correct way: as a
single double wide character.  C-f and C-b move over the character as if
it were one, however, backspace deletes only the second, leaving both
the first and the zero width joiner.  If C-f and C-b treat it as one,
then so should backspace.

Under recent versions of the foot terminal emulator, this character is
displayed as a single, double wide character, but emacs assumes it still
is 4 colums wide, leading to terminal breakage.  Emacs needs to not
assume the width of graphemes are what wcwidth() reports, but instead
need to query the cursor position after printing one to find out how
wide the terminal actually dispalyed it as.



In GNU Emacs 29.2 (build 1, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.39,
 cairo version 1.18.0) of 2024-02-26 built on localhost
System Description: Gentoo Linux

Configured using:
 'configure --prefix=/usr --build=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
 --host=x86_64-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man
 --infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
 --localstatedir=/var/lib --datarootdir=/usr/share
 --disable-silent-rules --docdir=/usr/share/doc/emacs-29.2-r1
 --htmldir=/usr/share/doc/emacs-29.2-r1/html --libdir=/usr/lib64
 --program-suffix=-emacs-29 --includedir=/usr/include/emacs-29
 --infodir=/usr/share/info/emacs-29 --localstatedir=/var
 --enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp
 --without-compress-install --without-hesiod --without-pop
 --with-file-notification=inotify --with-pdumper --enable-acl
 --with-dbus --with-modules --without-gameuser --with-libgmp --with-gpm
 --with-native-compilation=aot --without-json --without-kerberos
 --without-kerberos5 --with-lcms2 --without-xml2 --without-mailutils
 --without-selinux --without-sqlite3 --with-gnutls --with-libsystemd
 --with-threads --with-tree-sitter --without-wide-int --with-sound=alsa
 --with-zlib --with-pgtk --without-x --without-ns
 --with-toolkit-scroll-bars --without-gconf --without-gsettings
 --without-harfbuzz --without-libotf --without-m17n-flt
 --without-xwidgets --with-gif --with-jpeg --with-png --with-rsvg
 --with-tiff --without-webp --without-imagemagick --with-dumping=pdumper
 'CFLAGS=-march=native -O2 -pipe' 'LDFLAGS=-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed''

Configured features:
ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM JPEG LCMS2 LIBSYSTEMD
MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PGTK PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND
THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER XIM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  column-number-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug message yank-media puny dired
dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config
gnus-util text-property-search time-date mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode
mail-parse rfc2231 mailabbrev gmm-utils mailheader sendmail rfc2047
rfc2045 ietf-drums mm-util mail-prsvr mail-utils cus-start cus-load
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icons rx cl-extra help-mode manoj-dark-theme site-gentoo
ranger-autoloads scopeline-autoloads package browse-url url url-proxy
url-privacy url-expand url-methods url-history url-cookie
generate-lisp-file url-domsuf url-util mailcap url-handlers url-parse
auth-source cl-seq eieio eieio-core cl-macs password-cache json subr-x
map byte-opt gv bytecomp byte-compile url-vars cl-loaddefs cl-lib rmc
iso-transl tooltip cconv eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook
vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/pgtk-win pgtk-win
term/common-win pgtk-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe
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scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors
frame minibuffer nadvice seq simple cl-generic indonesian philippine
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript
charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help abbrev obarray oclosure
cl-preloaded button loaddefs theme-loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp
files window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env
code-pages mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote
threads dbusbind inotify dynamic-setting font-render-setting cairo gtk
pgtk lcms2 multi-tty make-network-process native-compile emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 121243 14450)
 (symbols 48 22924 0)
 (strings 32 87992 2869)
 (string-bytes 1 2065634)
 (vectors 16 27491)
 (vector-slots 8 1623278 223666)
 (floats 8 58 48)
 (intervals 56 908 0)
 (buffers 984 13))

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From: help-debbugs@HIDDEN (GNU bug Tracking System)
To: Phillip Susi <phill@HIDDEN>
Subject: bug#70000: Acknowledgement (29.2; Grapheme handling incorrect)
Message-ID: <handler.70000.B.171139236311697.ack <at> debbugs.gnu.org>
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Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 18:47:02 +0000

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Message sent to bug-gnu-emacs@HIDDEN:

Subject: bug#70000: 29.2; Grapheme handling incorrect
Resent-From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@HIDDEN>
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To: Phillip Susi <phill@HIDDEN>
Cc: 70000 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 21:35:24 +0200
Message-Id: <86cyrije9v.fsf@HIDDEN>
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@HIDDEN>
In-Reply-To: <878r26duar.fsf@HIDDEN> (message from Phillip Susi on
 Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:45:48 -0400)
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tags 70000 notabug
thanks

> From: Phillip Susi <phill@HIDDEN>
> Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:45:48 -0400
> 
> I had some terminal breakage the other day when browsing email with
> notmuch.  Now a ways down the rabbit hole, it seems this is because
> emacs does not correctly handle graphemes.  I found this article here:
> 
> https://mitchellh.com/writing/grapheme-clusters-in-terminals
> 
> If I paste that gramehe into GUI emacs, it is displayed as two separate
> characters, each two columns wide, instead of the correct way: as a
> single double wide character.

First, the above blog talks about text-mode terminals (a.k.a. "TTYs"),
so it is not relevant to GUI Emacs session.

And second, how that particular sequence of codepoints is displayed on
GUI frames depends on how your Emacs was built.  According to the list
of features included in your report, viz.:

  Configured features:
  ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM JPEG LCMS2 LIBSYSTEMD
  MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PGTK PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND
  THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER XIM GTK3 ZLIB

your Emacs is built without HarfBuzz, which I think explains why your
Emacs displays the above sequences as 2 separate characters.
Furthermore, the appearance depends on the fonts you have installed;
specifically, Emoji sequences need a font that has a good support of
the Emoji Unicode blocks.  In my Emacs, which does use HarfBuzz, I see
a single grapheme cluster.

> C-f and C-b move over the character as if
> it were one, however, backspace deletes only the second, leaving both
> the first and the zero width joiner.  If C-f and C-b treat it as one,
> then so should backspace.

That Backspace deletes a single codepoint is a feature: it allows
easier editing of composable character sequences, such as Emoji.
E.g., imagine you want to make a slight change to the Emoji by
modifying just the second of the two characters composed into a
grapheme cluster.  Emacs supports deletion of the entire grapheme
cluster with the command delete-forward-char, by default bound to the
<Delete> function key.

> Under recent versions of the foot terminal emulator, this character is
> displayed as a single, double wide character, but emacs assumes it still
> is 4 colums wide, leading to terminal breakage.

Emacs cannot know what the terminal does with these characters,
because there's no widely-accepted protocol for accessing that
information.  Different terminal emulators behave differently, and
some even have options to modify their behavior via the various
settings.

> Emacs needs to not assume the width of graphemes are what wcwidth()
> reports, but instead need to query the cursor position after
> printing one to find out how wide the terminal actually dispalyed it
> as.

Querying the cursor position won't help in this case because it is
Emacs that moves the cursor when you type C-f, not the terminal.

I see no Emacs bug here.  Until we have standard ways of querying
text-mode terminals about their processing of composable character
sequences into grapheme clusters, there's no way for Emacs to behave
correctly with all such terminal emulators.  Sorry.

Message received at control <at> debbugs.gnu.org:

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Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 21:35:24 +0200
Message-Id: <86cyrije9v.fsf@HIDDEN>
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz@HIDDEN>
To: Phillip Susi <phill@HIDDEN>
In-Reply-To: <878r26duar.fsf@HIDDEN> (message from Phillip Susi on
 Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:45:48 -0400)
Subject: Re: bug#70000: 29.2; Grapheme handling incorrect
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tags 70000 notabug
thanks

> From: Phillip Susi <phill@HIDDEN>
> Date: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 14:45:48 -0400
> 
> I had some terminal breakage the other day when browsing email with
> notmuch.  Now a ways down the rabbit hole, it seems this is because
> emacs does not correctly handle graphemes.  I found this article here:
> 
> https://mitchellh.com/writing/grapheme-clusters-in-terminals
> 
> If I paste that gramehe into GUI emacs, it is displayed as two separate
> characters, each two columns wide, instead of the correct way: as a
> single double wide character.

First, the above blog talks about text-mode terminals (a.k.a. "TTYs"),
so it is not relevant to GUI Emacs session.

And second, how that particular sequence of codepoints is displayed on
GUI frames depends on how your Emacs was built.  According to the list
of features included in your report, viz.:

  Configured features:
  ACL CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GPM JPEG LCMS2 LIBSYSTEMD
  MODULES NATIVE_COMP NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PGTK PNG RSVG SECCOMP SOUND
  THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER XIM GTK3 ZLIB

your Emacs is built without HarfBuzz, which I think explains why your
Emacs displays the above sequences as 2 separate characters.
Furthermore, the appearance depends on the fonts you have installed;
specifically, Emoji sequences need a font that has a good support of
the Emoji Unicode blocks.  In my Emacs, which does use HarfBuzz, I see
a single grapheme cluster.

> C-f and C-b move over the character as if
> it were one, however, backspace deletes only the second, leaving both
> the first and the zero width joiner.  If C-f and C-b treat it as one,
> then so should backspace.

That Backspace deletes a single codepoint is a feature: it allows
easier editing of composable character sequences, such as Emoji.
E.g., imagine you want to make a slight change to the Emoji by
modifying just the second of the two characters composed into a
grapheme cluster.  Emacs supports deletion of the entire grapheme
cluster with the command delete-forward-char, by default bound to the
<Delete> function key.

> Under recent versions of the foot terminal emulator, this character is
> displayed as a single, double wide character, but emacs assumes it still
> is 4 colums wide, leading to terminal breakage.

Emacs cannot know what the terminal does with these characters,
because there's no widely-accepted protocol for accessing that
information.  Different terminal emulators behave differently, and
some even have options to modify their behavior via the various
settings.

> Emacs needs to not assume the width of graphemes are what wcwidth()
> reports, but instead need to query the cursor position after
> printing one to find out how wide the terminal actually dispalyed it
> as.

Querying the cursor position won't help in this case because it is
Emacs that moves the cursor when you type C-f, not the terminal.

I see no Emacs bug here.  Until we have standard ways of querying
text-mode terminals about their processing of composable character
sequences into grapheme clusters, there's no way for Emacs to behave
correctly with all such terminal emulators.  Sorry.

Last modified: Mon, 25 Mar 2024 19:45:01 UTC

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