export to excel french character

Question

I have the following method on on my action to export to excel a list of user:

def users_report
    @users = Kid.where(confirmation_token: nil).paginate(:page => params[:page], :per_page => 30)
    @userxls = Kid.where(confirmation_token: nil)
    respond_to do |format|
        format.html
        format.xls { send_data @userxls.to_csv({col_sep: "\t"}) }
    end
end

On my model the to_csv method:

def self.to_csv(options = {})
    CSV.generate(options) do |csv|
    csv << ["Name", "Surname", "E-mail", "Age", "School", "Class", "Native Language", "Practised Language", "Conversations same Native", "Convserations different Native", "Message same Native", "Message different Native", "Posts", "Clossed/Finished calls", "Missed calls", "Connections per Week", "Nb of foreign friends", "Nb of friends same country", "Activation Date", "Email Parent", "Parent Activated"]
        kids = Array.new
        all.each do |kid|
            if kid.user_role != "admin"
                k   = Array.new
                kid.name = kid.name rescue "No name"
                k << kid.name
                kid.surname = kid.surname rescue "No surname"
                k << kid.surname
                kid.email = kid.email rescue "No email"
                k << kid.email
                k << kid.age rescue "No age"
                if !kid.school.nil?
                    k << kid.school.name
                else
                    k << "No School"
                end
                if kid.courses.empty?
                    k << "No Courses"
                else
                    k << kid.courses.first.name
                end

                if !kid.native_languages.empty?
                    languages = Array.new
                    kid.native_languages.each do |lang|
                        languages << Language.find(lang).name
                    end
                    k << languages
                else
                    k << "No native language"
                end
                if !kid.practice_languages.empty?
                    languages = Array.new
                    kid.practice_languages.each do |lang|
                        languages << Language.find(lang).name
                    end
                    k << languages
                else
                    k << "No practise language"
                end

                k << kid.number_of_native_conversations rescue "0"
                k << kid.number_of_foreign_conversations rescue "0"
                k << kid.number_of_native_messages rescue "0"
                k << kid.number_of_foreign_messages rescue "0"
                k << kid.number_of_activity_posts rescue "0"
                k << kid.number_of_finished_closed_calls rescue "0"
                k << kid.number_of_missed_calls rescue "0"
                k << kid.avg_of_connections_week rescue "0"
                k << kid.number_of_foreign_friends rescue "0"
                k << kid.number_of_friends_same_country rescue "0"
                k << kid.confirmed_at.try(:strftime, "%d/%m/%Y") rescue "0"
                k << kid.tutor.email rescue "No parent email"
                k << kid.tutor.confirmed? rescue "No parent email"

                kids << k
            end
        end
        kids.each do |k|
            csv << k
        end
  end
end

But on my excel file I'm getting names like Jérôme instead of Jérôme. I tried:

# encoding: utf-8

on my view also tried for every field

.force_encoding("UTF-8") 

But I still have this problem. Please I really need help with this.

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

CVS::generate understands an option :encoding (see Ruby API).

So use

format.xls { send_data @userxls.to_csv({col_sep: "\t", encoding: 'UTF-8'}) }

You may also think about separating representation and business logic. I use csv_builder that provides views like user_report.csv.csvbuilder to define the csv output.

cvs_builder uses the instance variable @encoding to specify the output character encoding.

Edit

It seems, like your generated csv is already encoded in UTF-8 but you read it as if it were ISO-8859-1 aka. LATIN-1.
You may want to try to generate the csv in LATIN-1 as excel has issues importing UTF-8 csv files.
Depending on the Ruby or Rails version, you have to use ISO-8859-1 instead of LATIN-1.