Re: Vim highlight high-ascii characters?

[Mitch Wiedemann <mitch@mwmu.com>]

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.