Re: Code pages

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

Manuel Castelao wrote:
> CHCP

Bless you, Manuel. I could not remember that command, and so could not
search the archives for it. Once I had it, I found the post (Aug. 25
2002) where Robert expounded it to you, and also (blush) the one from
just a month ago where he said he always changes his as part of boot up.

For the record, I paste them here:

Post of Aug 25 2002:

>>from what I know, the Windows default (at least in N.America) is
that the DOS console font (the font used to display a DOS program in a
Desktop window, also known as OEM) must be Ascii 437, not ANSI (ANSI
itself is a variously-defined term, we should really be talking about
ISO char sets, and the ISO 8859 set is, I believe, what is true ANSI,
whereas "Windows ANSI" is a nonconforming bastard that breaks the
rules, e.g. in the area <32 -- M$ refers to this creature as
CodePage1252 or Latin-1). In Spain the Windows DOS box default is
probably 850, and 1252 in windowed GUI apps. They do this because the
broadest universe of professional applications, e.g. ftp, doesn't
understand ANSI (moreover many such apps are restricted to 7-bit chars).


 From Post of Nov. 20 2006:
>>Note that, on NT anyway, the underlying Unicode API is smart. It
sometimes seems to know on its own what CodePage the current app uses,
and converts to that CodePage automatically, overriding your CMline
argument. This can happen, e.g., on the DOS command line (I am not
going to reboot right now, just to determine whether that happens
because I always explicitly use a CHCP argument when I boot my Win2K
machine). You need to experiment.<<

To answer Robert's question about W98, the command exists. If I open a
DOS prompt and type CHCP it returns 437. That holds even when, with Xy
open, I command DOS/NV and then type CHCP at the DOS prompt. Even
though VA/NV LA from within Xy yields 850. On the other hand, if I
minimize Xy and open a kmd prompt and type CHCP, I get "CHCP" is not
recognized as an internal or external command, operable program, or
batch file."

One of the few things I do know about the NT flavors is that they are
far less permissive about software directly manipulating hardware.
That would explain--maybe--my W2K box: my using the US International
keyboard might automatically set the CP to 850. But the XP box has the
ordinary US keyboard, and even on that, VA/NV LA in Xy yields 850.
And if Xy can within its own operations override the DVM's CP, we
shouldn't need to bother with DOS CPs, unless we need ANSIFIed Xy, No?

The more we learn, the less sense this makes. Let me test CHCP on the
office machines.
--
Patricia M. Godfrey
PriscaMG@Eskimo.com