Xmessage not rendering xmonad.hs errors correctly

[bugtrac]

Problem Description

OS: Arch Linux x86_64

Whenever I restart xmonad (using super + q), and there is an error in the .hs file, xmonad prints this error to xmessage. This is expected, and works as intended.

What is not expected is that the text renders incorrect characters (Tamil, I believe). My system has nothing to do with Tamil, as far as I know, in the locale or anywhere else.

I followed the instructions to install according to the link here, using Stack. I also included ~/.local/bin/ in $PATH by appending export PATH=/home/bugtrac/.local/bin:$PATH to /etc/profile as xmessage initially stated xmonad was not in $PATH, upon restarting xmonad. This path was already included in .bashrc.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Start xmonad
2. Deliberately write an error into xmonad.hs (located at $HOME/.local/bin)
3. Restart xmonad

Configuration File

import XMonad

main :: IO ()
main = xmonad $ def 
    {
        modMask = mod4Mask
        terminal = "urxvt"
    }

Checklist

• I've read CONTRIBUTING.md

• I tested my configuration

  • With xmonad version 0.18.0.9
  • With xmonad-contrib version 0.18.0.9 (I do not know how to do this)
  • By typing xmessage "Hello world" while logged into xmonad (which renders correctly)
  • Changing Xmessage*font in .Xresources using xfontsel --print, and using font value -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
  • Changing locale LC_CTYPE to LC_CTYPE=C and LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8" (changed via the method described here); note, I do not feel comfortable accepting LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 as a solution due to the wiki section here

[liskin]

This is almost certainly caused by aa35ea1#diff-206141305e4cc4e20f2b6ee7b8b99b238c57cff3a9fa442848427958e4c64f63R463-R464
Can you perhaps play a bit with xfontsel and figure out which fonts these patterns end up choosing on your system?

[bugtrac]

Hi @liskin and thank you very much for your help. I cannot be certain, but running xfontsel and placing the window next to the xmonad.hs error, I feel the font is one of the akruti* fonts. Please see the image below;

This particular screenshot uses akrutitml1 but other fonts with the akruti prefix yield very similar (if not identical) results. It should also be noted that other fonts, like tamu_maduram also apparently exist on this system, with the same glyphs, but are not being used by xmonad.hs for its xmessage window.

[liskin]

Hm, sounds like perhaps you don't have the right fonts installed at all. Try this package: https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/any/xorg-fonts-misc/