UTF-8 basic handling

[François-Xavier Coudert <Francois-Xavier.Coudert@xxxxxx>]

Hi all,

As I understand from previous messages on zsh lists, there currently is a
lack of UTF-8 support in zsh since nobody has enough time to code thinks.
As a user, I think there is one part of such support that becomes very
sharply needed: line editing.

As all major linux distributions are getting UTF-8 based, one of the most
annoying things in zsh is the following: I want to type a command, and I
unfortunately press on one of the accented letter keys of my keyboard
(that's a common mistake on any non-US keyboard). I get:

~ $ pdféps

(instead of pdf2ps for an example on french keyboard). I realize my
mistake, and use backspace 3 times, so I get on my screen:

~ $ pfd

Then I do enter "2ps", and the shell says:

~ $ pdf2ps
zsh: command not found: pdf\M-C2ps

Of course, I understand that I should have pressed backspace 4 times,
since é is two bytes large. But please consider that what I am describing
is now the common situation in most linux distros. Complete Unicode
support may be difficult and a long term goal, but line-editing now
really sucks.

Thanks for your attention,
François-Xavier

PS: please Cc all answers to me as I'm no suscriber of the list.

-- 
François-Xavier Coudert
École normale supérieure
45, rue d'Ulm - 75005 Paris
<Francois-Xavier.Coudert@xxxxxx>