Ruby and non-ASCII characters

**xyzt** · April 27th, 2009

I'm trying out Ruby. So far it seems fine, but I have a serious problem here on my system: several string methods don't work with characters other than ASCII. For instance:

puts "Olá José António!".reverse

and .upcase won't upcase, etc.

The input method doesn't matter. If the string is entered via gets, the same problem occurs.

What is going on? One is supposed to be able to use his own language? TIA.

**Tibuda** · April 27th, 2009

See this:
http://www.nabble.com/How-to-upcase-...d19300474.html

**xyzt** · April 28th, 2009

Originally Posted by danielrmt

See this:
http://www.nabble.com/How-to-upcase-...d19300474.html

Almost there:

jmccm@ubuntu-base:~$ irb -rrubygems -runicode
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `gem_original_require': no such file to load -- unicode (LoadError)
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:252:in `load_modules'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:250:in `each'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:250:in `load_modules'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:21:in `setup'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb.rb:54:in `start'
from /usr/bin/irb:13
jmccm@ubuntu-base:~$ irb -rrubygems -rUnicode
/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `gem_original_require': no such file to load -- Unicode (LoadError)
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/rubygems/custom_require.rb:31:in `require'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:252:in `load_modules'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:250:in `each'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:250:in `load_modules'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb/init.rb:21:in `setup'
from /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/irb.rb:54:in `start'
from /usr/bin/irb:13
jmccm@ubuntu-base:~$

The Unicode thing seems to be still missing?

**Tibuda** · April 28th, 2009

Have you installed the unicode gem?

Code:

sudo aptitude install rubygems # if not installed
sudo gem install unicode

**xyzt** · April 29th, 2009

Originally Posted by danielrmt

Have you installed the unicode gem?

Code:

sudo aptitude install rubygems # if not installed
sudo gem install unicode

We're not quite there yet...

Code:

leader@toshiba-ubuntu:~$ sudo gem install unicode
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing unicode:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb install unicode
extconf.rb:1:in `require': no such file to load -- mkmf (LoadError)
	from extconf.rb:1

Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/unicode-0.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/unicode-0.1/ext/gem_make.out

**Tibuda** · April 29th, 2009

Originally Posted by xyzt

We're not quite there yet...

mkmf... you need to install the ruby1.8-dev package from synaptic to install the gem. It was already installed on my PC (for other gems), so I didn't got that message when installing the unicode gem. Install build-essentials too, if not already installed.

**xyzt** · April 30th, 2009

Now I'm really at a loss:

Code:

leader@toshiba-ubuntu:~$ sudo gem install unicode
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
Successfully installed unicode-0.1
1 gem installed
leader@toshiba-ubuntu:~$ irb -rrubygems -runicode
irb(main):001:0> puts "Olá José António!".reverse
!oin��tnA ��soJ ��lO
=> nil
irb(main):002:0>

build-essential was already installed (for gcc), ruby1.8-dev was the one missing.