Howdy. I’m working with Iconv and discovered that this code
require “iconv”
[“ægis”, “straße”, “kierkegÃ¥rd”, “joão”, “bjørk”].each do |word|
puts “#{word} => #{Iconv.iconv(‘ascii//translit’, ‘utf-8’, word)}”
end
generates different results depending on how the code is loaded.
“ægis” and “straße” convert fine no matter how they’re called but
“kierkegÃ¥rd” and “joão” only convert correctly when loaded or typed or
pasted within an open instance of irb. Sadly, poor “bjørk” never
manages to get correctly converted. At the bottom of the email, I have
pasted the results of the various methods I’ve tried to run this code.
Note: The last attempt I show below apparently does work for a
friend of mine using Fedora 7. Just more weirdness? I dunno. My mind’s
reeling. Time for a break. 
Thanks in advance,
RSL
Here’s the various code runs…
rsl@sneaky ~ > irb
irb(main):001:0> load “omg.rb”
ægis => aegis
straße => strasse
kierkegård => kierkegard
joão => joao
bjørk => bj?rk
rsl@sneaky ~ > ./omg.rb
ægis => aegis
straße => strasse
kierkegård => kierkeg?rd
joão => jo?o
bjørk => bj?rk
rsl@sneaky ~ > ruby omg.rb
ægis => aegis
straße => strasse
kierkegård => kierkeg?rd
joão => jo?o
bjørk => bj?rk
rsl@sneaky ~ > irb omg.rb
omg.rb(main):001:0> #!/usr/bin/env ruby
omg.rb(main):002:0* require “iconv”
=> true
omg.rb(main):003:0> [“ægis”, “straße”, “kierkegÃ¥rd”, “joão”,
“bjørk”].each do |word|
omg.rb(main):004:1* puts “#{word} =>
#{Iconv.iconv(‘ascii//translit’, ‘utf-8’, word)}”
omg.rb(main):005:1> end
ægis => aegis
straße => strasse
kierkegård => kierkeg?rd
joão => jo?o
bjørk => bj?rk
=> ["\303\246gis", “stra\303\237e”, “kierkeg\303\245rd”,
“jo\303\243o”, “bj\303\270rk”]
omg.rb(main):006:0> exit
rsl@sneaky ~ > cat omg.rb | irb
#!/usr/bin/env ruby
require “iconv”
true
[“ægis”, “straße”, “kierkegÃ¥rd”, “joão”, “bjørk”].each do |word|
puts “#{word} => #{Iconv.iconv(‘ascii//translit’, ‘utf-8’, word)}”
end
ægis => aegis
straße => strasse
kierkegård => kierkeg?rd
joão => jo?o
bjørk => bj?rk
["\303\246gis", “stra\303\237e”, “kierkeg\303\245rd”, “jo\303\243o”,
“bj\303\270rk”]
exit
