# Character-encodings gem with Ruby 1.9 **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [July 10, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/character-encodings-gem-with-ruby-1-9/142723 "2008-07-10T21:22:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![stefans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stefans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefans)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 9:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/character-encodings-gem-with-ruby-1-9/142723/1 "2008-07-10T21:22:00Z")
Hello, I tried to install Nikolai W.'s Ruby Character Encodings Library [1] with Ruby 1.9, but didn’t succeed. $ sudo gem1.9 install character-encodings Building native extensions. This could take a while… ERROR: Error installing character-encodings: ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension. /opt/local/bin/ruby1.9 extconf.rb install character-encodings extconf.rb:4: invalid multibyte char extconf.rb:4: invalid multibyte char extconf.rb:4: syntax error, unexpected $end, expecting keyword\_end checking\_for “‘#{opt}’ option to compiler” do ^ Gem files will remain installed in /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.0/gems/character-encodings-0.4.1 for inspection. Results logged to /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.9.0/gems/character-encodings-0.4.1/ext/encoding/character/utf-8/gem\_make.out I downloaded the gem, extracted it, added a magic comment at the top of the file and manually called the configure command, that worked. $ ruby1.9 extconf.rb install character-encodings checking for ‘-std=c99’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-finline-functions’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wall’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wextra’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wwrite-strings’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Waggregate-return’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wmissing-prototypes’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wmissing-declarations’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wnested-externs’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wundef’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wpointer-arith’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Wcast-align’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Werror’ option to compiler… yes checking for ‘-Winline’ option to compiler… yes checking for assert.h… yes checking for limits.h… yes checking for locale.h… yes checking for stdbool.h… yes checking for stddef.h… yes checking for stdint.h… yes checking for stdio.h… yes checking for stdlib.h… yes checking for string.h… yes checking for sys/types.h… yes checking for wchar.h… yes creating Makefile But then the make command failed. $ make /usr/bin/gcc-4.0 -I. -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0/i686-darwin9.3.0 -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0 -I. -DHAVE\_ASSERT\_H -DHAVE\_LIMITS\_H -DHAVE\_LOCALE\_H -DHAVE\_STDBOOL\_H -DHAVE\_STDDEF\_H -DHAVE\_STDINT\_H -DHAVE\_STDIO\_H -DHAVE\_STDLIB\_H -DHAVE\_STRING\_H -DHAVE\_SYS\_TYPES\_H -DHAVE\_WCHAR\_H -I/opt/local/include -D\_XOPEN\_SOURCE -D\_DARWIN\_C\_SOURCE -fno-common -O2 -fno-common -pipe -fno-common -std=c99 -finline-functions -Wall -Wextra -Wwrite-strings -Waggregate-return -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Wundef -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Werror -Winline -o break.o -c break.c /usr/bin/gcc-4.0 -I. -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0/i686-darwin9.3.0 -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0 -I. -DHAVE\_ASSERT\_H -DHAVE\_LIMITS\_H -DHAVE\_LOCALE\_H -DHAVE\_STDBOOL\_H -DHAVE\_STDDEF\_H -DHAVE\_STDINT\_H -DHAVE\_STDIO\_H -DHAVE\_STDLIB\_H -DHAVE\_STRING\_H -DHAVE\_SYS\_TYPES\_H -DHAVE\_WCHAR\_H -I/opt/local/include -D\_XOPEN\_SOURCE -D\_DARWIN\_C\_SOURCE -fno-common -O2 -fno-common -pipe -fno-common -std=c99 -finline-functions -Wall -Wextra -Wwrite-strings -Waggregate-return -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Wundef -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Werror -Winline -o decompose.o -c decompose.c /usr/bin/gcc-4.0 -I. -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0/i686-darwin9.3.0 -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0 -I. -DHAVE\_ASSERT\_H -DHAVE\_LIMITS\_H -DHAVE\_LOCALE\_H -DHAVE\_STDBOOL\_H -DHAVE\_STDDEF\_H -DHAVE\_STDINT\_H -DHAVE\_STDIO\_H -DHAVE\_STDLIB\_H -DHAVE\_STRING\_H -DHAVE\_SYS\_TYPES\_H -DHAVE\_WCHAR\_H -I/opt/local/include -D\_XOPEN\_SOURCE -D\_DARWIN\_C\_SOURCE -fno-common -O2 -fno-common -pipe -fno-common -std=c99 -finline-functions -Wall -Wextra -Wwrite-strings -Waggregate-return -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Wundef -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Werror -Winline -o private.o -c private.c /usr/bin/gcc-4.0 -I. -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0/i686-darwin9.3.0 -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0 -I. -DHAVE\_ASSERT\_H -DHAVE\_LIMITS\_H -DHAVE\_LOCALE\_H -DHAVE\_STDBOOL\_H -DHAVE\_STDDEF\_H -DHAVE\_STDINT\_H -DHAVE\_STDIO\_H -DHAVE\_STDLIB\_H -DHAVE\_STRING\_H -DHAVE\_SYS\_TYPES\_H -DHAVE\_WCHAR\_H -I/opt/local/include -D\_XOPEN\_SOURCE -D\_DARWIN\_C\_SOURCE -fno-common -O2 -fno-common -pipe -fno-common -std=c99 -finline-functions -Wall -Wextra -Wwrite-strings -Waggregate-return -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Wundef -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Werror -Winline -o properties.o -c properties.c /usr/bin/gcc-4.0 -I. -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0/i686-darwin9.3.0 -I/opt/local/include/ruby-1.9.0 -I. -DHAVE\_ASSERT\_H -DHAVE\_LIMITS\_H -DHAVE\_LOCALE\_H -DHAVE\_STDBOOL\_H -DHAVE\_STDDEF\_H -DHAVE\_STDINT\_H -DHAVE\_STDIO\_H -DHAVE\_STDLIB\_H -DHAVE\_STRING\_H -DHAVE\_SYS\_TYPES\_H -DHAVE\_WCHAR\_H -I/opt/local/include -D\_XOPEN\_SOURCE -D\_DARWIN\_C\_SOURCE -fno-common -O2 -fno-common -pipe -fno-common -std=c99 -finline-functions -Wall -Wextra -Wwrite-strings -Waggregate-return -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Wundef -Wpointer-arith -Wcast-align -Werror -Winline -o rb\_utf\_aref.o -c rb\_utf\_aref.c rb\_utf\_aref.c:8:16: error: re.h: No such file or directory cc1: warnings being treated as errors rb\_utf\_aref.c: In function ‘rb\_str\_subpat’: rb\_utf\_aref.c:44: warning: implicit declaration of function ‘rb\_reg\_search’ rb\_utf\_aref.c:44: warning: nested extern declaration of ‘rb\_reg\_search’ rb\_utf\_aref.c: In function ‘rb\_utf\_aref\_default’: rb\_utf\_aref.c:65: error: ‘struct RString’ has no member named ‘ptr’ rb\_utf\_aref.c:65: error: ‘struct RString’ has no member named ‘len’ make: \*\*\* [rb\_utf\_aref.o] Error 1 What can I do to make it work? Stefan [1] [http://bitwi.se/software/ruby/character-encodings/](http://bitwi.se/software/ruby/character-encodings/) ---
**Author:** ![stefans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stefans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefans)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2008, 10:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/character-encodings-gem-with-ruby-1-9/142723/2 "2008-07-10T22:01:16Z")
On Jul 10, 2008, at 2:17 PM, Stefan S. wrote: > I tried to install Nikolai W.'s Ruby Character Encodings > Library [1] with Ruby 1.9, but didn’t succeed. Do you know that 1.9 has excellent built-in support for character encodings? Dave ---
**Author:** ![stefans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stefans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefans)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2008, 12:04am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/character-encodings-gem-with-ruby-1-9/142723/3 "2008-07-11T00:04:53Z")
> > I tried to install Nikolai W.'s Ruby Character Encodings > > Library [1] with Ruby 1.9, but didn’t succeed. > > Do you know that 1.9 has excellent built-in support for character > encodings? Yes, but String#upcase/downcase doesn’t work for non-ascii strings. Stefan ---
**Author:** ![stefans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stefans](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/stefans)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2008, 12:41pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/character-encodings-gem-with-ruby-1-9/142723/4 "2008-07-15T12:41:00Z")
In article [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid), Dave T. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Do you know that 1.9 has excellent built-in support for character > encodings? Like the OP said, as long as #upcase/#downcase don’t work, I’d not call that excellent. I can certainly understand the constraints of locales/i18n/m17n and the way choosen by Matz for Ruby, but I’m getting frustrated by the support (or more exactly lack thereof) of Unicode strings. I’m looking at friends that have chosen Python and while their way may not be the Right One (if there is such a way) but they are enjoying it for common usage. For a language that toots POLA as a slogan, Unicode support is certainly violating every principle there. I’m following 1.9 closely through svn and regularely try to use the Unicode support but it is not getting better. Sorry if it sounds grumpy but I’m getting frustrated by my favorite language and am afraid it shows.