# \[ANN\] DiacriticsFu 1.0.1 released

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-diacriticsfu-1-0-1-released/154995>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [December 5, 2008, 11:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-diacriticsfu-1-0-1-released/154995 "2008-12-05T23:21:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thbar)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2008, 11:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-diacriticsfu-1-0-1-released/154995/1 "2008-12-05T23:21:37Z")

</div>

Hi,

DiacriticsFu is a gem that relies on ActiveSupport to remove accents  
and other diacritics from a string. I use it when I need to generate  
urls on non-english-speaking CMS or blogs.

Release 1.0.1 brings support for Rails 2.2+ (patch courtesy of Nicolas  
Fouché).

=== installation ===

gem sources -a [http://gems.github.com](http://gems.github.com)

sudo gem install thbar-diacritics\_fu

(alternatively, clone from  
[GitHub - thbar/diacritics\_fu: Tiny Ruby library to remove accents and other diacritics from a string (relies on ActiveSupport).](http://github.com/thbar/diacritics_fu/tree/master))

=== compatibility ===

DiacriticsFu has been tested against the following versions of  
ActiveSupport: 2.2.2, 2.1.2, 2.1.1, 2.1.0, 2.0.5, 2.0.2, 2.0.1, 1.4.4,  
1.4.2.

=== examples ===

DiacriticsFu::escape(“éphémère”)  
=\> “ephemere”

DiacriticsFu::escape(“räksmörgås”)  
=\> “raksmorgas”

=== feedback ? ===

In case you meet any issue, drop a mail (removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid).

cheers,

## Thibaut Barrère

[http://blog.logeek.fr](http://blog.logeek.fr)  
[http://evolvingworker.com](http://evolvingworker.com)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thbar)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 8:49pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-diacriticsfu-1-0-1-released/154995/2 "2008-12-08T20:49:47Z")

</div>

I was very excited when I saw this, but I can’t get it to work on my  
system – though I admit to having no knowledge of multibyte  
characters and I would guess my problem is either an environment  
issue, or a change that is happening in Rails 2.3, but perhaps you  
could point me in the right direction.

here’s a sample of my output…

ruby script/console  
Loading development environment (Rails 2.3.0)

* * *

```
  * config.breakpoint_server has been deprecated and has no

```

effect. \*

* * *

> > DiacriticsFu::escape(‘Réne’)  
> > =\> “Réne”
> 
> > ActiveSupport::VERSION::STRING  
> > =\> “2.3.0”
> 
> > str = ‘Réne’  
> > =\> “Réne”

> > a = ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars.new(str)  
> > =\> #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ec47c8  
> > @wrapped\_string=“Réne”\>

> > a.normalize(:d)  
> > =\> #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ec17d0  
> > @wrapped\_string=“Réne”\>

> > b = a.normalize(:d)  
> > =\> #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ebced8  
> > @wrapped\_string=“Réne”\>

> > c = b.split(//u)  
> > =\> [#\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165eb91c0  
> > @wrapped\_string=“R”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165eb9148  
> > @wrapped\_string=“e”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165eb9080  
> > @wrapped\_string=“́”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165eb8fb8  
> > @wrapped\_string=“n”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165eb8ef0  
> > @wrapped\_string=“e”\>]

> > c.map{|ch|ch.length}  
> > =\> [1, 1, 1, 1, 1]

So, on my system, what we expect would be a 4 character array with the  
second of length \> 1,  
it’s a 5 character array, each of length 1.

and just for kicks:

> > d = a.split(//u)  
> > =\> [#\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ead618  
> > @wrapped\_string=“R”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ead5a0  
> > @wrapped\_string=“é”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ead4d8  
> > @wrapped\_string=“n”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ead410  
> > @wrapped\_string=“e”\>]

> > d.map{|ch|ch.length}  
> > =\> [1, 1, 1, 1]

> > e = b.split(//u)  
> > =\> [#\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ea1458  
> > @wrapped\_string=“R”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ea13e0  
> > @wrapped\_string=“e”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ea1318  
> > @wrapped\_string=“́”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ea1250  
> > @wrapped\_string=“n”\>, #\<ActiveSupport::Multibyte::Chars:0x7f4165ea1188  
> > @wrapped\_string=“e”\>]
> 
> > e.map{|ch|ch.length}  
> > =\> [1, 1, 1, 1, 1]

If you see something that could help me out, I’d appreciate it. Like I  
said, this could come in very handy for me.

Thanks,

John Devine  
removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thbar)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 10:43am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-diacriticsfu-1-0-1-released/154995/3 "2008-12-10T10:43:50Z")

</div>

Hello John,

> I was very excited when I saw this, but I can’t get it to work on my  
> system – though I admit to having no knowledge of multibyte  
> characters and I would guess my problem is either an environment  
> issue, or a change that is happening in Rails 2.3, but perhaps you  
> could point me in the right direction.

thanks for your feedback - I’m happy that the library could be useful  
to some of us 🙂

My first reaction was: has Rails edge introduced a refactoring that  
would make this fail ? So I cloned edge from GitHub and added this to  
the gem Rakefile:

task :escape\_with\_rails\_edge do

# grab edge, cloned from github

$LOAD\_PATH \<\< File.dirname( **FILE** ) + “/gems/rails/activesupport/lib”  
require ‘active\_support’  
require ‘active\_support/version’  
puts ActiveSupport::VERSION::STRING  
require File.dirname( **FILE** ) + ‘/lib/diacritics\_fu’  
puts DiacriticsFu::escape(“Réne”)  
end

It seems to work, so no issue with Rails:

Macintosh:diacritics\_fu thbar$ rake escape\_with\_rails\_edge  
(in /Users/thbar/git/diacritics\_fu)  
2.3.0  
Rene

At this point I think it’s some issue with code encoding probably.

(check, check, wait…)

Hum it seems that I have some issue. In my spec, $KCODE is set to nil.  
If I set it to “UTF8” like Rails does by default, the spec doesn’t  
pass (you keep Réne instead of Rene).

I guess I’ll have to investigate more to see why it works in my other  
setup, and not in this one. This is probably some environmental issue  
like you said.

I’ll keep you posted - if you find anything on your side, please contact  
me!

Thanks for your feedback,

– Thibaut

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thbar)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 11:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-diacriticsfu-1-0-1-released/154995/4 "2008-12-10T11:07:55Z")

</div>

I investigated a bit more:

- with a blank Rails 2.0.5 app, works as expected
- with a blank Rails 2.2.2 app, doesn’t work

So obviously the \>= Rails 2.2.2 fix (see new\_escaper.rb) does not work  
properly.

I’ll keep you posted.

cheers

– Thibaut

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/eb8c5e/32.png) [@thbar](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/thbar)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 12:07pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ann-diacriticsfu-1-0-1-released/154995/5 "2008-12-10T12:07:33Z")

</div>

Hey there,

I just released DiacriticsFu 1.0.2 that should work with Rails \>= 2.2  
and $KCODE “UTF8” (the default Rails setup).

It’s still a hack but I hope it will work for you 🙂

cheers

## Thibaut

[http://blog.logeek.fr](http://blog.logeek.fr)  
[http://evolvingworker.com](http://evolvingworker.com)