# Problem with REXML

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-rexml/104962>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [May 24, 2007, 11:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-rexml/104962 "2007-05-24T11:46:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![bigjimmyk3](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@bigjimmyk3](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigjimmyk3)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 11:46am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-rexml/104962/1 "2007-05-24T11:46:47Z")

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I have a problem when reading out strings from xml documents. The  
problem is that special characters such as åäö comes out wierd. When  
reading these characters from text files the problem doesn’t exist. Can  
someone explain whay this is and, if possible, how I can fix it?

Thanks  
Jim

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**Author:** ![bigjimmyk3](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@bigjimmyk3](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigjimmyk3)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 11:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-rexml/104962/2 "2007-05-24T11:58:01Z")

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What are the file encodings? Do the text files have a different  
encoding than the xml ones?

George

On 24 May 2007, at 10:46, Jim Kr wrote:

> –  
> Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).

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m242ynUYCnlAXVU5BMuJt64=  
=zCcu  
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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bigjimmyk3](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@bigjimmyk3](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigjimmyk3)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 12:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-rexml/104962/3 "2007-05-24T12:52:04Z")

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George M. wrote:

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> What are the file encodings? Do the text files have a different  
> encoding than the xml ones?
> 
> George
> 
> On 24 May 2007, at 10:46, Jim Kr wrote:
> 
> > –  
> > Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).
> 
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> iD8DBQFGVWFmuHSlGoVGf7URAq+IAJ0d0BY5jANt7F9ekzsRl0+G2k1eVgCfTdMj  
> m242ynUYCnlAXVU5BMuJt64=  
> =zCcu  
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The XML file is encoded with ISO-8859-1 while the text files are Windows  
.txt files (for which I don’t have a clue what encoding they use)

Jim

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bigjimmyk3](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@bigjimmyk3](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/bigjimmyk3)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/problem-with-rexml/104962/4 "2007-05-24T13:22:10Z")

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It might help if you try saving the files as UTF-8 and then add:

$KCODE = ‘u’  
require ‘jcode’

in your script.

George

> The XML file is encoded with ISO-8859-1 while the text files are  
> Windows  
> .txt files (for which I don’t have a clue what encoding they use)
> 
> Jim
> 
> –  
> Posted via [http://www.ruby-forum.com/](http://www.ruby-forum.com/).

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=o5GF  
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