Nokogiri XML builder with cyrillic text (windows 1251)

Question

I am trying to create an XML file from an array. This is my builder code:

def buildXML(formattedText)
    builder = Nokogiri::XML::Builder.new do |xml|
        xml.products {
            formattedText.each do |lineItem|
                xml.item {
                    xml.articleNumber lineItem[0]
                    description = lineItem[1..(findIndexOnShtrih(lineItem)-1)].join(" ").force_encoding(Encoding::Windows_1251)
                    xml.description description
                    xml.shtrihCode lineItem.at(findIndexOnShtrih(lineItem))
                }
            end

        }
    end
end

My input looks like this (it contains always an article number on 1st index, then there goes the description from 2nd to N-3 index, N-2 till N-1 is amount and Nth index contains the bar code):

["047609", "СОК", "СВЕЖЕВЫЖАТЫЙ", "ТОМАТ", "200", "МЛ", "(фреш", "дня)", "1", "шт", "2400000032731"]["048504", "ВОДА", "ГАЗИРОВАННАЯ", "С", "НАТУРАЛЬНЫМ", "СИРОПОМ", "(200МЛ)", "1", "шт", "2400000032953"]["055794", "СОК", "СВЕЖЕВЫЖАТЫЙ", "В", "АССОРТИМЕНТЕ", "(200МЛ)", "1", "шт", "2400000036425"]["058270", "СОК", "СВЕЖЕВЫЖАТЫЙ", "КЛУБНИКА", "+ЯБЛОКО", "200", "МЛ", "(фреш", "дня)", "1", "шт", "2400000037149"]

This leads to stuff like this:

    <articleNumber>055794</articleNumber>
    <description>&#x421;&#x41E;&#x41A; &#x421;&#x412;&#x415;&#x416;&#x415;&#x412;&#x42B;&#x416;&#x410;&#x422;&#x42B;&#x419; &#x412; &#x410;&#x421;&#x421;&#x41E;&#x420;&#x422;&#x418;&#x41C;&#x415;&#x41D;&#x422;&#x415; (200&#x41C;&#x41B;) 1 &#x448;&#x442;</description>
    <shtrihCode>2400000036425</shtrihCode>
  </item>
  <item>
    <articleNumber>058270</articleNumber>
    <description>&#x421;&#x41E;&#x41A; &#x421;&#x412;&#x415;&#x416;&#x415;&#x412;&#x42B;&#x416;&#x410;&#x422;&#x42B;&#x419; &#x41A;&#x41B;&#x423;&#x411;&#x41D;&#x418;&#x41A;&#x410; +&#x42F;&#x411;&#x41B;&#x41E;&#x41A;&#x41E; 200 &#x41C;&#x41B; (&#x444;&#x440;&#x435;&#x448; &#x434;&#x43D;&#x44F;) 1 &#x448;&#x442;</description>
    <shtrihCode>2400000037149</shtrihCode>
  </item>
</products>

Basically, I want the description in the XML to show proper cyrillic letters.

Can I somehow force the builder to use specific encoding? I've found a lot of material on how to open XML files with certain encoding, using Nokogiri::XML(a, nil, "UTF-8") for example, but nothing on how to build a valid XML.

Surprisingly enough if I omit the code block on my text, SO displays my text just fine.

Answer 1

After hours of trying found this post - How do I encode/decode HTML entities in Ruby?

You need do decode such values as С according to this table: http://webdesign.about.com/od/localization/l/blhtmlcodes-ru.htm

CGI didn't help me, but HTMLEntities did.

This is my working code right now:

require 'htmlentities'
puts HTMLEntities.new.decode(buildXML(cleansedArray).to_xml)

And finally the desired output:

  <item>
    <articleNumber>055794</articleNumber>
    <description>СОК СВЕЖЕВЫЖАТЫЙ В АССОРТИМЕНТЕ (200МЛ) 1 шт</description>
    <shtrihCode>2400000036425</shtrihCode>
  </item>
  <item>
    <articleNumber>058270</articleNumber>
    <description>СОК СВЕЖЕВЫЖАТЫЙ КЛУБНИКА +ЯБЛОКО 200 МЛ (фреш дня) 1 шт</description>
    <shtrihCode>2400000037149</shtrihCode>
  </item>
</products>