CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsutf-8
John
John

Reputation: 3460

Why does Rails 3 pitch a fit about UTF-8 character encoding?

I just started work on a new Rails app, using the bright and shiny new version of Rails, 3.2.1. Previously, I had only used up to version 3.0.9. Before I describe my error, let it be known that I am using Ruby version ruby 1.9.2p290 (2011-07-09) [i386-mingw32] on Windows 7 32-bit. I have not changed my version of Ruby recently. I am using Notepad++ v5.9.3 and haven't (on purpose) changed any default settings.

When I ran my new app for the first time, I got an odd message:

ActionView::WrongEncodingError in Index#index

Your template was not saved as valid UTF-8. Please either specify UTF-8 as the encoding for your template in your text editor, or mark the template with its encoding by inserting the following as the first line of the template:

# encoding: <name of correct encoding>.

I do not understand why I am getting this error all of a sudden. Is it part of changes made to Rails 3.2.1? It is easily fixed by going into Notepad++ and using the Encoding menu option "Convert to UTF-8" but, like I said, I've never had to do this before.

The other odd thing is that even the files that Rails generates are generated with ANSI encoding when I use a generator. Overall, I'm confused and I want to make sure that I'm using good programming practices.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 4122

Answers (2)

letsgoduke
letsgoduke

Reputation: 40

I had tried the encoding: utf-8 method without luck, but I resolved the issue when I changed the encoding using Notepad++. Thanks!

Upvotes: -1

Nathan Kleyn
Nathan Kleyn

Reputation: 5143

Is it part of changes made to Rails 3.2.1? It is easily fixed by going into Notepad++ and using the Encoding menu option "Convert to UTF-8" but, like I said, I've never had to do this before.

Yes. Rails 3.0+ (I think) requires all templates to be saved in UTF-8 encoding. You need to save the file as UTF-8. If that still doesn't work, set the encoding explicitly by adding on the first line of your .rb files the following:

# encoding: utf-8

Add this to the first line of your .erb templates:

<%# encoding: utf-8 %>

See this related question, and this similar problem. Sounds to me like your editor's encoding settings changed since you originally created the files.

The other odd thing is that even the files that Rails generates are generated with ANSI encoding when I use a generator. Overall, I'm confused and I want to make sure that I'm using good programming practices.

That is quite odd, and I'm not sure I have a good suggestion for that one, other then trying to add Encoding.default_external = "UTF-8" to your config.ru and config/environment.rb files.

Upvotes: 2

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