# Unicode in URL param?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicode-in-url-param/113879>\
**Category:** Rails I18n\
**Created:** [September 5, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicode-in-url-param/113879 "2007-09-05T21:46:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jrochkind](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/779978/32.png) [@jrochkind](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jrochkind)\
**Post date:** [September 5, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicode-in-url-param/113879/1 "2007-09-05T21:46:14Z")

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Can I put unicode chars in a URL param value? If so… how? Right now,  
in my URL params generated by Umlaut, Unicode seems to get corrupted. I  
have a string with unicode in it–when sent to the browser, it displays  
properly. But I put that string in a param value, and make a request,  
and look at the value, and send it to the browser—now it no longer  
displays correctly, the unicode char displays as two wrong chars.

Any ideas what’s going on, or how to deal with this? Thanks for any  
advice.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![jrochkind](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/j/779978/32.png) [@jrochkind](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/jrochkind)\
**Post date:** [September 7, 2007, 8:24pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/unicode-in-url-param/113879/2 "2007-09-07T20:24:11Z")

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Actually, in response to my own previous question—I hadn’t properly  
isolated the bug.

Here’s what’s really going on. An external data source, not under my  
control, is giving me strings that are actually “double-encoded UTF-8”  
via an HTTP XML API. I can’t do anything about this data, this is the  
way it comes. (Yes, the provider of this data is written in Perl. Grr.)

Is there any easy way I can somehow return this double-encoded UTF-8 to  
real legitimate UTF-8 in Ruby?

Any advice?

Jonathan