# Issue with character encoding in http request

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/issue-with-character-encoding-in-http-request/186232>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 2, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/issue-with-character-encoding-in-http-request/186232 "2010-04-02T17:25:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![droopy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/47e85d/32.png) [@droopy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/droopy)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 5:25pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/issue-with-character-encoding-in-http-request/186232/1 "2010-04-02T17:25:41Z")

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Hi there,

I have an issue with character encoding on http request that I need to  
handle in my rails apps.

Here’s an example of my log :

Processing MessagesController#incoming (for 217.117.146.164 at  
2010-04-02 16:08:27) [GET]  
Parameters: {“action”=\>“incoming”, “z”=\>“Je suis un bon ?l?ve.”,  
“alias”=\>“33699425463”, “controller”=\>“messages”}  
… some db processing…  
Rendering messages/incoming  
Completed in 39ms (View: 2, DB: 27) | 200 OK  
[[http://server.mydomain.com/in/?z=Je+suis+un+bon+�l�ve.&alias=33699425463](http://server.mydomain.com/in/?z=Je+suis+un+bon+%E9l%E8ve.&alias=33699425463)]

As you can guess I expect the system to receive the z value decoded as  
“Je suis un bon élève.” and not “Je suis un bon ?l?ve.”

Anyone as faced this issue already ?

By the way, I cannot ask the request sender to change his encoding  
method…  
On the other hand, I’ve setup everything in my app to use utf-8 which  
works fine…

Thanks in advance,

Christophe

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![droopy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/47e85d/32.png) [@droopy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/droopy)\
**Post date:** [April 2, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/issue-with-character-encoding-in-http-request/186232/2 "2010-04-02T19:09:17Z")

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On Apr 2, 4:23 pm, Christophe D. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
wrote:

> By the way, I cannot ask the request sender to change his encoding method…  
> On the other hand, I’ve setup everything in my app to use utf-8 which works fine…

Well if you cannot change the sender then you don’t have a choice -  
you’ll have to convert the input (probably an iso latin varient) into  
utf8. The iconv library can handle a large number of encodings.

Fred

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![droopy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/47e85d/32.png) [@droopy](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/droopy)\
**Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 9:21am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/issue-with-character-encoding-in-http-request/186232/3 "2010-04-08T09:21:32Z")

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Thanks a lot.  
I had some difficulties to find info about iconv, but it works.  
Christophe

Le 2 avr. 2010 à 19:07, Frederick C. [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid)  
a écrit :