# Win32 unicode filename support? **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [February 13, 2007, 2:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/win32-unicode-filename-support/85381 "2007-02-13T02:33:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kelleysislander)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 2:33am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/win32-unicode-filename-support/85381/1 "2007-02-13T02:33:46Z")
Hi, I’m reading the win32-utils docs ( [http://rubyforge.org/docman/?group\_id=85](http://rubyforge.org/docman/?group_id=85) ) to try to determine whether Unicode filename support is provided by the win32-file module? I didn’t see much mention of unicode, except in the win32-dir docs, which mentioned unicode was not yet properly supported on “create\_junction”. That leads me to suspect maybe unicode _is_ supported on the other routines. If so, my next question would be, which encoding format should the filename string be in when passed to, say, File.open() ? UTF8 ? Thanks for your help, Bill ---
**Author:** ![kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kelleysislander)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 5:26am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/win32-unicode-filename-support/85381/2 "2007-02-13T05:26:05Z")
On Feb 12, 6:32 pm, “Bill K.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > That leads me to suspect maybe unicode _is_ supported on the > other routines. > > If so, my next question would be, which encoding format should > the filename string be in when passed to, say, File.open() ? > UTF8 ? Since File.open isn’t redefined in win32-file, it won’t make a difference one way or the other. 🙂 However, in general I would say that Unicode support is even worse than I originally thought (though, no worse than stock Ruby). What I’m considering is to seriously rework windows-pr such that I explicitly define the ANSI and Wide versions of every function, then do something like this in the source: def GetFileAttributes(file) if $KCODE == ‘UTF8’ GetFileAttributesW.call(file) else GetFileAttributesA.call(file) end end By using the -Ku option (or just setting $KCODE directly) you would get the wide version. Otherwise, you get the ANSI version. This seemed to work pretty well in the few tests that I’ve done. The most difficult part for authors using these functions would be to remember to convert strings to wide character versions first, before passing them to the functions. I provided a couple helper methods for that - multi\_to\_wide and wide\_to\_multi, that handles the most typical cases. Regards, Dan ---
**Author:** ![kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kelleysislander)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 5:50am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/win32-unicode-filename-support/85381/3 "2007-02-13T05:50:07Z")
Hi, From: “Daniel B.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > On Feb 12, 6:32 pm, “Bill K.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > If so, my next question would be, which encoding format should > > the filename string be in when passed to, say, File.open() ? > > UTF8 ? > > Since File.open isn’t redefined in win32-file, it won’t make a > difference one way or the other. 🙂 > […] > I provided a couple helper methods for > that - multi\_to\_wide and wide\_to\_multi, that handles the most typical > cases. Sorry if I’ve misunderstood your post - but does this mean that there’s currently no way to open/create a file with a unicode filename with the win32 tools? Or does this mean that the multi\_to\_wide methods already exist, and that I should be using those? Thanks, Bill ---
**Author:** ![kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kelleysislander)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2007, 6:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/win32-unicode-filename-support/85381/4 "2007-02-13T06:51:15Z")
On Feb 12, 9:49 pm, “Bill K.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > Since File.open isn’t redefined in win32-file, it won’t make a > > difference one way or the other. 🙂 > > […] > > I provided a couple helper methods for > > that - multi\_to\_wide and wide\_to\_multi, that handles the most typical > > cases. > > Sorry if I’ve misunderstood your post - but does this mean > that there’s currently no way to open/create a file with a > unicode filename with the win32 tools? At the moment, no. > Or does this mean > that the multi\_to\_wide methods already exist, and that I > should be using those? Even with multi\_to\_wide you would still have to define the wide character functions yourself because I haven’t done it yet in windows- pr. I’m doing it right now, but it will be some time before I’m finished. We’re talking hundreds of functions here. But, you could do use a mix of windows-pr functions and custom defined functions using Win32API. I’ll provide a sample later this week when I get some more time. Regards, Dan ---
**Author:** ![kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kelleysislander)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/win32-unicode-filename-support/85381/5 "2008-09-05T15:21:12Z")
Hi, Is there any new progress in support of unicode filenames? Plans? Bill: Did you find another solution? Daniel B. wrote: > On Feb 12, 9:49 pm, “Bill K.” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > > > > Since File.open isn’t redefined in win32-file, it won’t make a > > > difference one way or the other. 🙂 > > > […] > > > I provided a couple helper methods for > > > that - multi\_to\_wide and wide\_to\_multi, that handles the most typical > > > cases. > > > > Sorry if I’ve misunderstood your post - but does this mean > > that there’s currently no way to open/create a file with a > > unicode filename with the win32 tools? > > At the moment, no. > > > Or does this mean > > that the multi\_to\_wide methods already exist, and that I > > should be using those? > > Even with multi\_to\_wide you would still have to define the wide > character functions yourself because I haven’t done it yet in windows- > pr. I’m doing it right now, but it will be some time before I’m > finished. We’re talking hundreds of functions here. > > But, you could do use a mix of windows-pr functions and custom defined > functions using Win32API. I’ll provide a sample later this week when I > get some more time. > > Regards, > > Dan ---
**Author:** ![kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/f6c823/32.png) [@kelleysislander](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kelleysislander)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/win32-unicode-filename-support/85381/6 "2008-09-05T16:10:19Z")
From: “Jarek Kubos” [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) > Bill: Did you find another solution? I went with a crude workaround. In our case, we’re embedding ruby into a C++ app, so I added hooks so that I could call the subset of our unicode-aware file I/O routines on the C++ side that I actually needed, from ruby. If I had needed anything more comprehensive than just a few routines like “read\_binary\_file(path)” and “write\_binary\_file(path, data)”, I might have considered a different approach, like actually patching the win32 ruby source to convert utf8 to utf16 at the last moment before making the equivalent “wide” API calls. The last mention of win32 unicode API support I saw was in a ruby-core message [ruby-core:17759] , entitled, “Ruby 1.9.1 Feature and 1.9.0-3 release plan”. See the “What will not” section, below: == Rough plan of the 1.9.1 features === What will be included in 1.9.1 - default values in block parameters - built-in coverage measurement - improved version of transcode - transcode C API (experimental; only for internal use) - unicode console support on mswin32, mswin64 and mingw32 - some platforms will no longer be supported. === What will not - miniunit (we need more discussion. it will possibly be included) - Win32 unicode API support (1.9.2?) - one-byte trap instruction (1.9.2?) - dtrace (1.9.2?) - Multi-VM (1.9.5?) It’s encouraging that it’s at least on the list. But it looks like it may be awhile. Regards, Bill