# How to convert it into utf-8? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [July 11, 2010, 12:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-convert-it-into-utf-8/191382 "2010-07-11T12:40:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/luofeiyu)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 12:40pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-convert-it-into-utf-8/191382/1 "2010-07-11T12:40:43Z")
in my linux comsole: ghex2 /home/pt/myday there is the first line content AA3F3201861F0000D61F0000 would you mind to tell me how can convert it into utf-8? ---
**Author:** ![luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/luofeiyu)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 6:03pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-convert-it-into-utf-8/191382/2 "2010-07-11T18:03:46Z")
On Sun, Jul 11, 2010 at 1:40 PM, Pen T. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > in my linux comsole: > ghex2 /home/pt/myday > there is the first line content > AA3F3201861F0000D61F0000 > would you mind to tell me how can convert it into utf-8? I can’t tell which unicode range those specific code points belong to, but if you’re sure the hex data represents utf-8, and I understand what you are asking for correctly, try something like: line.scan(/(…)/).each do |code\_point| puts code\_point.pack(‘H\*’) end Depending on where the data is coming from, you might need to flip the bytes to account for endianness. I don’t believe that will be an issue on linux. Hope it helps, Ammar ---
**Author:** ![luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/luofeiyu)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-convert-it-into-utf-8/191382/3 "2010-07-12T01:47:49Z")
pt@pt-laptop:~$ file /home/pt/myday /home/pt/myday: data ---
**Author:** ![luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/luofeiyu)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-convert-it-into-utf-8/191382/4 "2010-07-12T01:59:44Z")
would you mind to tell me your email? i can send the data file to you,please help me,think you in advance. ---
**Author:** ![luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/luofeiyu)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2010, 10:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-convert-it-into-utf-8/191382/5 "2010-07-11T22:58:03Z")
Pen T. wrote: > in my linux comsole: > ghex2 /home/pt/myday > there is the first line content > AA3F3201861F0000D61F0000 > would you mind to tell me how can convert it into utf-8? What do you meant “convert to utf-8”? Those hex characters are very unlikely to be UTF-8. See > **[UTF-8](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UTF-8)** > > UTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding standard used for electronic communication. Defined by the Unicode Standard, the name is derived from Unicode (or Universal Coded Character Set) Transformation Format – 8-bit. > UTF-8 is capable of encoding all 1,112,064\[a\] valid character code points in Unicode using one to four one-byte (8-bit) code units. Code points with lower numerical values, which tend to occur more frequently, are encoded using fewer bytes. It was designed for backward compati... AA = second, third or fourth byte of multi-byte sequence 3F = single-byte character (?) 32 = single-byte character (2) 01 = single-byte character (ctrl-A) 86 = second, third or fourth byte of multi-byte sequence 1F = single-byte character (ctrl-?) … etc Apart from D6 there are no “start of n-byte sequence” characters Try typing “file /home/pt/myday”, which will attempt to identify what sort of file you actually have. ---
**Author:** ![luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/9de0a6/32.png) [@luofeiyu](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/luofeiyu)\ **Post date:** [July 12, 2010, 10:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/how-to-convert-it-into-utf-8/191382/6 "2010-07-12T10:47:38Z")
Pen T. wrote: > pt@pt-laptop:~$ file /home/pt/myday > /home/pt/myday: data ‘file’ knows many file formats - look at /usr/share/file/magic or /etc/magic depending on your system. But this isn’t one of them. Neither is the data UTF-8 text, or at least, the header isn’t. You could look to see if there are any snippets of readable text in it: ``` strings /home/pt/myday | less ``` But if not, then it really is just binary data, and its meaning will depend on what program wrote it in the first place.