# Displaying currency symbols in select

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [August 17, 2007, 10:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306 "2007-08-17T10:09:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jspencer78)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 10:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306/1 "2007-08-17T10:09:43Z")

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I can’t seem to get a £ symbol to display correctly in a form select  
element.

I have tried:  
number\_to\_currency(u.price, :unit =\> “&pound”)  
number\_to\_currency(u.price, :unit =\> “£”)  
h ( number\_to\_currency(u.price, :unit =\> “&pound”) )  
h ( number\_to\_currency(u.price, :unit =\> “£”) )

They all display a ? or “&pound;”

Is there a way around this?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jspencer78)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2007, 10:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306/2 "2007-08-17T10:11:09Z")

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I just noticed I posted this in the wrong forum :-p  
It should have been in the rails forum

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jspencer78)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 12:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306/3 "2007-08-19T00:03:11Z")

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Op vr 17 aug 10:10:04 2007 CEST schreef James Sturrock in  
de nieuwsgroep ‘comp.lang.ruby’:

> Is there a way around this?

Are u using a character set that contains the pound sign? (Like UTF-8)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jspencer78)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 3:14am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306/4 "2007-08-19T03:14:54Z")

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James Sturrock wrote:

> I can’t seem to get a £ symbol to display correctly in a form select  
> element.
> 
> I have tried:  
> number\_to\_currency(u.price, :unit =\> “&pound”)  
> number\_to\_currency(u.price, :unit =\> “£”)  
> h ( number\_to\_currency(u.price, :unit =\> “&pound”) )  
> h ( number\_to\_currency(u.price, :unit =\> “£”) )
> 
> They all display a ? or “&pound;”
> 
> Is there a way around this?

Well, you should close it with a ;, “£”, not “&pound”.

Regards  
Stefan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jspencer78)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306/5 "2007-08-19T14:57:47Z")

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Stefan R. wrote:

> Well, you should close it with a ;, “£”, not “&pound”.
> 
> Regards  
> Stefan

I have tried it with the ‘;’ and its still doesn’t work. Has anybody  
else managed to display a £ sign in a form select?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jspencer78)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 10:31am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306/6 "2007-08-20T10:31:30Z")

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Stefan R. wrote:

> I don’t have any problem with neither £ nor with charset set to  
> utf-8 and a literal £ in utf-8.  
> Maybe you should take a look at what rails emits? (I don’t use rails, so  
> forgive my ignorance, but maybe rails escapes the £ to  
> &ound;?)
> 
> Regards  
> Stefan

Rails is outputting &pound;

I don’t think this is a character set issue as I am displaying the £  
sign elsewhere on the page (just as text not in a form element) and it  
displays correctly.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jspencer78)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2007, 5:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306/7 "2007-08-19T17:42:20Z")

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James Sturrock wrote:

> Stefan R. wrote:
> 
> > Well, you should close it with a ;, “£”, not “&pound”.
> > 
> > Regards  
> > Stefan
> 
> I have tried it with the ‘;’ and its still doesn’t work. Has anybody  
> else managed to display a £ sign in a form select?

I don’t have any problem with neither £ nor with charset set to  
utf-8 and a literal £ in utf-8.  
Maybe you should take a look at what rails emits? (I don’t use rails, so  
forgive my ignorance, but maybe rails escapes the £ to  
&ound;?)

Regards  
Stefan

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/f14d63/32.png) [@jspencer78](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jspencer78)\
**Post date:** [August 20, 2007, 2:56pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/displaying-currency-symbols-in-select/112306/8 "2007-08-20T14:56:21Z")

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I have managed to fix this using the CGI::unescapeHTML() method 🙂