# Does Rails provide solid support for UTF-8? **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [April 11, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513 "2006-04-11T17:17:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidjrice)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 5:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513/1 "2006-04-11T17:17:26Z")
I need to use UTF-8 in my app and was wondering if Rails would support it properly. Some sites seem to be saying that it has weak internationalization support. Is this true? If so, where is the problem? What should I look out for? Are there tweaks, plugins or gems that fix the problem? TIA. David ---
**Author:** ![davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidjrice)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 5:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513/2 "2006-04-11T17:29:21Z")
Hi, my app is utf-8, and i have no problem. There’s a tuto somewhere that explains how to do that. The only issue was with pdf-writer, which (when i made the application) did not support utf-8 (but i found a workaround). Small warning: be very careful that your editor, as well as the editor of anyone touching your app, is encoding files in utf-8 ---
**Author:** ![davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidjrice)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 5:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513/3 "2006-04-11T17:46:29Z")
Nicolas B. wrote: > Hi, > > my app is utf-8, and i have no problem. There’s a tuto somewhere that > explains how to do that. The only issue was with pdf-writer, which (when > i > made the application) did not support utf-8 (but i found a workaround). Thanks, Nicolas! If you happen to remember the tuto and workaround for the pdf-writer, let me know. TIA. BTW, I’m planning to set up the following: - OS: FreeBSD - Web server: Lighttpd - DB: MySQL - Misc: Sessions stored in DB Any known UTF-8 problems with that? ---
**Author:** ![davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidjrice)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 8:50pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513/4 "2006-04-11T20:50:08Z")
David R. wrote: > I need to use UTF-8 in my app and was wondering if Rails would support > it properly. > Some sites seem to be saying that it has weak internationalization > support. Is this true? If so, where is the problem? What should I look > out for? > Are there tweaks, plugins or gems that fix the problem? AFAIK, Ruby’s string functions doesn’t support utf-8. And I presume that weak internationalization support mean “RoR doesn’t provide an unified internationalization solution”, you need to rely on third party code which is certainly a problem. ---
**Author:** ![davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidjrice)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513/5 "2006-04-12T01:33:15Z")
[http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToUseUnicodeStrings](http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/pages/HowToUseUnicodeStrings) The nasty warnings at the top of that page are too strong. Our app is using UTF-8 in Rails extensively and we’re having no problems at all, even with a bunch of Japanese users. You’ve just got to be a little careful given that Ruby 1.8.\* doesn’t have much unicode support in its built-in string handling. Pete Y. [http://9cays.com](http://9cays.com) ---
**Author:** ![davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidjrice)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513/6 "2006-04-12T14:42:13Z")
Pete, Thanks a lot for the link and encouraging news re your own experience using UTF-8! BTW, the page says “This is being looked at” (i.e., they are looking into how to fix the problem w/ Ruby not handling UTF-8 properly), but does anyone happen to know if there are any concrete plans to incorporate thorough support for Unicode in Ruby? David ---
**Author:** ![davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidjrice)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513/7 "2006-04-14T01:29:03Z")
Pete Y. wrote: > [http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/futurismUnicodeInRuby.html](http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/futurismUnicodeInRuby.html) Thanks, Pete! I’m definitely looking forward to 2.0, but it seems 1.8.x will do the trick for now. ---
**Author:** ![davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/5e9695/32.png) [@davidjrice](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/davidjrice)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:07am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/does-rails-provide-solid-support-for-utf-8/57513/8 "2006-04-13T01:07:46Z")
[http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/futurismUnicodeInRuby.html](http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/futurismUnicodeInRuby.html)