# Does anyone work with iso-8859-1 database?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [July 12, 2006, 4:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108 "2006-07-12T16:45:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Arnaud_G)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2006, 4:45pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108/1 "2006-07-12T16:45:54Z")

</div>

hello,

Our database is in is-8859-1, and I want to update some text fields  
without success due to some accentuate characters éà ect …

```
In my html page (where the charset is iso-8859-19) my textarea

```

display the accentuate characters well and when the user post the form  
… I thought that I just need to save it … without success since  
ruby map one byte for one character …  
So I thought I just need to set the charset to UTF-8 in my html page  
and convert to iso in my controller with the iconv library =\> no success

I also saw some hacks for UTF-8, but I don’t know how to use it for  
iso-8859-1  
[Peak Obsession](http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToUseUnicodeStrings)

=\> how do you do to update iso-8859-1database text field ?

thanks  
arnaud

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Arnaud_G)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 12:11am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108/2 "2006-07-13T00:11:26Z")

</div>

Arnaud,

are you posting the updates with Ajax? Rails uses UTF-8 for Ajax  
requests, so you need to convert it to iso-8859-1. Check out this  
article for info on how to do it:

[http://dema.ruby.com.br/articles/2005/07/22/playing-nice-with-ajax-and-iso-8859-1](http://dema.ruby.com.br/articles/2005/07/22/playing-nice-with-ajax-and-iso-8859-1)

/ CJ

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Arnaud_G)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 10:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108/3 "2006-07-13T10:17:23Z")

</div>

Hi Carl and thanks for tip  
To answer your question I do not use ajax for posting …

Do you mean that ajax use UTF8 for posting and “normal” post not ?  
(simple ajax dummie question ;-), how do you do an ajax post ? ;-))

I look at the article you give me it works with iconv by converting the  
string form utf8 to iso …  
I did the same thing directly on my rails app by converting params hash  
… without success …  
So the problem is what are the default ruby encoding ? I search and find  
that there is no default encoding in ruby each byte is map to the string  
object …=\> So it is not possible to do it directly in rails due to  
ruby (I saw that it will be different in ruby 2.0 …)

=\> So no solution with ruby ? do you have any feedback about using jcode  
and the $KCODE ?

thanks

arnaud

Carl-Johan K. a écrit :

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Arnaud_G)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 11:45am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108/4 "2006-07-13T11:45:37Z")

</div>

Hi,

I am currently working with a ISO-8859-9 database…  
I am a new member of the group and did not read the rest of the  
discussion…

But, let me share what I did how to work with a non-UTF8 database and  
ajax…

First, you have to modify  
…ruby\lib\ruby\gems\1.8\gems\activesupport-1.3.1\lib\active\_support\json\encoders\core.rb  
file …

Find method “define\_encoder String do |string|” (in my case line 22)  
And put this 2 lines of code at the start of method :

```
    iconv = Iconv.new('UTF-8', 'ISO-8859-9')
    string = iconv.iconv(string)

```

of course, you must add require ‘iconv’ at the begining of core.rb…

Then, modify your controller/action methods accepting requests from ajax  
calls to reverse the encoding-change… (this time from UTF8 to  
ISO-8859-X)  
I have written a method fort this: (I am using ajax\_scaffold generator,  
but you can change the code according to your needs…)

def iconvize(params)  
iconv = Iconv.new(‘ISO-8859-9’, ‘UTF-8’)  
for scaffold\_column in Put\_Your\_Model\_Name\_Here.scaffold\_columns  
if params[:personel][:"#{scaffold\_column.name}"].class == String  
params[:personel][:"#{scaffold\_column.name}"] =  
iconv.iconv(params[:personel][:"#{scaffold\_column.name}"])  
end  
end  
end

And, as I said before make a call to iconvize method at the beginning of  
your actions called by ajax, like this:

def update  
begin  
iconvize(params)  
@personel = Personel.find(params[:id])  
…

And, that’s all…  
Hope, this helps…

---

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**Author:** ![Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Arnaud_G)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 9:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108/5 "2006-07-14T09:59:18Z")

</div>

Hi Erhan,

I try to use the same “hack” 😉 you did, without success since rails  
never go throw define\_encoder in core.rb file  
Since I have to gems install one in /usr/lib and one in /usr/local/lib I  
did in both without success …  
more funny I write wrong syntax in this function, and there was nothing  
… no error, it really seems that rails never use this .

any idea ?

arnaud

Erhan ERÝÞKEN a écrit :

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Arnaud_G)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 10:49am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108/6 "2006-07-14T10:49:42Z")

</div>

Hi Arnaud,

First of all, I use rails in Windows environment… (I dont know whether  
it makes a difference…)

What I suggest you, remove all the “hack” lines from core.rb, and just  
make an ajax call from your app… Then, look at your “development.log”  
file…

You must see the error trace at the very end of the log file…

This is the way I found that rails makes a call to core.rb…

To help you, here I copy my development.log trace when an ajax call is  
made without the “hack”…

You can see the “malformed UTF-8 char…” error, and the call to  
“unpack” in core.rb file in the trace.

When I do the “hack”, all these errors went away, it renders the .rjs  
files correctly and updates the iso-8859-9 database with correct Turkish  
chars.

Also, after you did what I said to you above (remove hack, make an ajax  
call, look at log file), you can send me your error trace in  
development.log file, and we can look for what’s happening in your case  
together…

Here is my error trace :

* * *

## ActionView::TemplateError (malformed UTF-8 character) on line #6 of app/views/personel/edit.rjs: 3: 4: if @successful 5: page.hide element\_row\_id(@view\_options) 6: page.insert\_html :bottom, scaffold\_tbody\_id(@options), :partial =\> ‘new\_edit’ 7: page \<\< “new TableRow.MoveAfter(’#{element\_row\_id(@view\_options)}’, ‘#{element\_row\_id(@options)}’);” 8: page.show element\_row\_id(@options) 9: page \<\< “setupAllTabs()” D:/EErisken/Downloads/ruby/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.3.1/lib/active\_support/json/encoders/core.rb:36:in `unpack' D:/EErisken/Downloads/ruby/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.3.1/lib/active_support/json/encoders/core.rb:36 D:/EErisken/Downloads/ruby/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/jcode.rb:212:in`each\_char’ D:/EErisken/Downloads/ruby/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/jcode.rb:211:in `each_char' D:/EErisken/Downloads/ruby/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.3.1/lib/active_support/json/encoders/core.rb:27 D:/EErisken/Downloads/ruby/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.3.1/lib/active_support/core_ext/object/misc.rb:23:in`returning’ D:/EErisken/Downloads/ruby/InstantRails/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/activesupport-1.3.1/lib/active\_support/json/encoders/core.rb:26

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**Author:** ![Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Arnaud_G)\
**Post date:** [July 14, 2006, 10:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108/7 "2006-07-14T22:03:49Z")

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Hi Arnaud,

by the way, a question came to my mind, have you restart the web-server  
after you made the hack?

* * *

Kimden: Arnaud G. [[mailto:removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)]  
GönderilmiÅ?: Cum 14.07.2006 10:58  
Kime: removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
Bilgi: Erhan ERÄ°Å?KEN  
Konu: Re: [Rails] Does anyone work with iso-8859-1 database ?

Hi Erhan,

I try to use the same “hack” 😉 you did, without success since rails  
never go throw define\_encoder in core.rb file  
Since I have to gems install one in /usr/lib and one in /usr/local/lib I  
did in both without success …  
more funny I write wrong syntax in this function, and there was nothing  
… no error, it really seems that rails never use this .

any idea ?

arnaud

Erhan ERÄ°Å?KEN a écrit :

> And put this 2 lines of code at the start of method :  
> iconv = Iconv.new(‘ISO-8859-9’, ‘UTF-8’)  
> begin  
> Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 11:16 AM  
> string form utf8 to iso …
> 
> > Arnaud,  
> > On 7/12/06, Arnaud G. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:
> > 
> > > display the accentuate characters well and when the user post the form
> > > 
> > > removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid
> 
> * * *
> 
> Rails mailing list  
> removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid  
> [http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails](http://lists.rubyonrails.org/mailman/listinfo/rails)

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nun (SPK) goruslerini yansitmadigi gibi, SPK’ yi baglayici da degildir.  
Bu mesajin icerisinde ya da eklerinde yer alan bilgilerin dogrulugu,  
butunlugu ve guncelligi SPK tarafindan garanti edilmemektedir ve bilinen  
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**Author:** ![Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/a/46a35a/32.png) [@Arnaud\_G](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/Arnaud_G)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2006, 2:57pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-anyone-work-with-iso-8859-1-database/98108/8 "2006-07-13T14:57:41Z")

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Many thanks Erhan for your help, it will work like this …  
So the global idea is always to use ajax(which work with utf-8) before  
converting with iconv in iso-8859-1.

arnaud

Erhan ERÝÞKEN a écrit :