# Iconv "\\n" (Iconv::InvalidCharacter)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/iconv-n-iconv-invalidcharacter/175126>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [September 8, 2009, 2:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/iconv-n-iconv-invalidcharacter/175126 "2009-09-08T14:19:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![ciapecki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@ciapecki](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/ciapecki)\
**Post date:** [September 8, 2009, 2:19pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/iconv-n-iconv-invalidcharacter/175126/1 "2009-09-08T14:19:49Z")

</div>

I have following tab delimited ucs-2le input file ucs2le\_sample.txt:  
Job Title Second case  
“EVP; COO, DIGITAL TV” “ESPTA TÉCNICO ““B”””

there are 2 columns (Job Title, Second case)

internally in Ruby:

irb(main):001:0\> File.open(“ucs2le\_sample.txt”,“r”).each do |line|  
irb(main):002:1\* p line  
irb(main):003:1\> end  
“\377\376J\000o\000b\000 \000T\000i\000t\000l\000e\000\t\000S\000e\000c  
\000o\000n\000d\000 \000c\000a\000s\000e\000\r\000\n”  
“\000”\000E\000V\000P\000;\000 \000C\000O\000O\000,\000 \000D\000I  
\000G\000I\000T\000A\000L\000 \000T\000V\000"\000\t\000"\000E\000S  
\000P\000T\000A\000 \000T\000\311\000C\000N\000I\000C\000O\000  
\000"\000"\000B\000"\000"\000"\000\r\000\n"  
“\000”  
=\> #\<File:ucs2le\_sample.txt\>

I am trying to convert this file into UTF8 encoding with following  
conv.rb script:  
require ‘iconv’

File.open(“utf8.txt”,“wb”) do |f|  
File.open(“ucs2le\_sample.txt”,“rb”).each do |line|  
ic = Iconv.new(“UTF-8”,“UCS-2LE”)  
f.write(ic.iconv(line))  
end  
end

when I run it I end up with error message:

chris@chris-ub:~/staging/ruby/csv2db$ ruby conv.rb  
conv.rb:6:in `iconv': "\n" (Iconv::InvalidCharacter) from conv.rb:6 from conv.rb:4:in`each’  
from conv.rb:4  
from conv.rb:3:in `open’  
from conv.rb:3

How can I modify the little script to convert the ucs-2le file into  
utf-8?

thanks,  
chris