# Upcase special chars (åäöü...)?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/upcase-special-chars-a-a-a-a/58148>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [April 18, 2006, 11:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/upcase-special-chars-a-a-a-a/58148 "2006-04-18T23:32:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/daniel)\
**Post date:** [April 18, 2006, 11:32pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/upcase-special-chars-a-a-a-a/58148/1 "2006-04-18T23:32:02Z")

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Hey guys

How do you upcase the special characters (åäöü)?  
I use latin-1 and not utf-8.

How did you solve this problem? (nice ruby way or ugly hack doesnt  
matter)

Daniel

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**Author:** ![daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/daniel)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 1:33pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/upcase-special-chars-a-a-a-a/58148/2 "2006-04-19T13:33:45Z")

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Ok, this is what I have come up with so far… pretty ugly, but it  
works.

def myupcase(stringtoupper)  
stringtoupper.upcase.gsub(‘Ã¥’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ä’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ö’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ü’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ñ’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ï’,‘Ï’)  
end

//Daniel

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/daniel)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/upcase-special-chars-a-a-a-a/58148/3 "2006-04-19T13:43:41Z")

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> Ok, this is what I have come up with so far… pretty ugly, but it  
> works.
> 
> def myupcase(stringtoupper)  
> stringtoupper.upcase.gsub(‘å’,‘Å’).gsub(‘ä’,‘Ä’).gsub(‘ö’,‘Ö’).gsub(‘ü’,‘Ü’).gsub(‘ñ’,‘Ñ’).gsub(‘ï’,‘Ï’)  
> end

How about:

stringtoupper.upcase.tr(‘åäöüñï’,‘ÅÄÖÜÑÏ’)

## Regards, Rimantas

[http://rimantas.com/](http://rimantas.com/)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/daniel)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 1:43pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/upcase-special-chars-a-a-a-a/58148/4 "2006-04-19T13:43:47Z")

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Hello,

> Ok, this is what I have come up with so far… pretty ugly, but it  
> works.
> 
> def myupcase(stringtoupper)  
> stringtoupper.upcase.gsub(‘Ã¥’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ä’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ö’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ü’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ñ’,‘Ã?’).gsub(‘ï’,‘Ï’)  
> end

In this case, you can use String#tr :

stringtoupper.upcase.tr(‘åäöüñï’, ‘Ã?Ã?Ã?Ã?Ã?Ï’)

```
 -- Jean-François.
```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@daniel](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/daniel)\
**Post date:** [April 19, 2006, 2:05pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/upcase-special-chars-a-a-a-a/58148/5 "2006-04-19T14:05:43Z")

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Daniel wrote the following on 19.04.2006 13:33 :

> 

If you don’t need the old upcase behaviour, you can put the following  
where needed (probably in lib/string\_overload.rb and 'require’d in  
application.rb and/or application\_helper.rb):

class String  
alias\_method :old\_upcase, :upcase  
def upcase  
self.old\_upcase.tr(‘åäöüñï’, ‘Ã?Ã?Ã?Ã?Ã?Ï’)  
end  
end