RSpec - inspected result must be ASCII only [duplicate] - ruby

The following code works without problem:
#encoding: utf-8
class Text
def initialize(txt)
#txt = txt
end
def inspect
"<Text: %s>" % #txt
end
end
p Text.new('Hello World')
But if I try p Text.new('Hä, was soll das?') I get a Encoding::CompatibilityError:
inspect_with_umlaut.rb:26:in `p': inspected result must be ASCII only or use the default external encoding (Encoding::CompatibilityError)
from inspect_with_umlaut.rb:26:in `<main>'
Why this?
And more important: How can I avoid it?

The error message explains already the why:
inspected result must be ASCII only or use the default external encoding
In this case the inspect-command gets a UTF-8 character (Not ASCII), but the default encoding seems to be another.
The default encoding can be read in Encoding.default_external.
To avoid the error you must encode the result of inspect:
#encoding: utf-8
class Text
def initialize(txt)
#txt = txt
end
def inspect
#force ASCII and replace invalid/undefined characters
("<Text: %s>" % #txt).encode('ASCII', :undef => :replace, :invalid => :replace)
end
end
p Text.new('Hä, was soll das?') #-> <Text: H?, was soll das?>
Instead of ASCII in encode you can use also Encoding.default_external:
("<Text: %s>" % #txt).encode(Encoding.default_external, :undef => :replace)

Related

ruby: How comes File.read in utf-8 fails to read a valid utf-8 character?

Context
Trying to parse with ruby 2.6.3+ a csv file utf-8 encoded
The file contains one character that throws a CSV::MalformedCSVError
After isolating, the character of interest seems to be the SINGLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK (U+201A). This one ‚.
That character seems to be supported by UTF-8 (3 bytes, in hex: e2809a or \xe2\x80\x9a) (ref1, ref2)
test.csv file content
"value"
"abc‚d"
Error when parsing with CSV class:
irb(main):001:0> require 'csv'
=> true
irb(main):002:0> CSV.read("test.csv", **{headers: true, skip_blanks: true, encoding: "utf-8"})
Traceback (most recent call last):
2: from C:/ruby/Ruby26-x64/lib/ruby/2.6.0/csv/parser.rb:297:in `parse'
1: from C:/ruby/Ruby26-x64/lib/ruby/2.6.0/csv/parser.rb:711:in `build_scanner'
CSV::MalformedCSVError (Invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 in line 2.)
although \u201a is a utf-8 supported character:
irb(main):001:0> str = "\u201a"
=> "‚"
irb(main):002:0> str.ord.to_s(16)
=> "201a"
irb(main):003:0> str.encoding.name
=> "UTF-8"
irb(main):004:0> str.unpack("H*")
=> ["e2809a"]
Treating encoding errors with scrub
Using String#scrub with a block does not seem to get the SINGLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK. See the code below (x82 refers to the original ‚):
irb(main):001:0> content = File.read('test.csv', encoding: 'utf-8')
=> "\"value\"\n\"abc\x82d\"\n"
irb(main):002:0> content.scrub! do |bytes|
irb(main):003:1* "<" + bytes.unpack('H*')[0] + ">"
irb(main):004:1> end
=> "\"value\"\n\"abc<82>d\"\n"
irb(main):005:0> require 'csv'
=> true
irb(main):006:0> CSV.parse(content, **{headers: true, skip_blanks: true, encoding: "utf-8"}).each do |row|
irb(main):007:1* pp row["value"]
irb(main):008:1> end
"abc<82>d"
=> #<CSV::Table mode:col_or_row row_count:2>
As shown above, the SINGLE LOW-9 QUOTATION MARK is replaced by <82>, the hexadecimal representation of the offending bytes. At this point, I am a bit lost.
Question
While it seems consistent that there is a CSV::MalformatedCSVError and that String#scrub fails to find the 3 bytes of the UTF-8 e2809a character (getting one byte instead: 0x82):
If the character \u201a is supported by UTF-8 (as e2809a), what can be the root cause of the error?
Opening the csv file in a text editor (Notepad++), the character is correctly displayed on the text area. When I copy and paste the character (‚) in this Unicode Lookup, it correctly identifies the character. So nothing seems to be wrong with it.
Looking at the code sample above (irb), nothing seems wrong with the usage of CSV.read and File.read. Could you confirm (explain) or discard if the error is related to the usage of those methods?
Perhaps there is nothing to fix, not to be expected, but I am not sure. It seems fairly difficult, if not impossible, to create a generic solution in ruby that correctly spots the offending character.

`scan': invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 (ArgumentError)

I'm trying to read a .txt file in ruby and split the text line-by-line.
Here is my code:
def file_read(filename)
File.open(filename, 'r').read
end
puts f = file_read('alice_in_wonderland.txt')
This works perfectly. But when I add the method line_cutter like this:
def file_read(filename)
File.open(filename, 'r').read
end
def line_cutter(file)
file.scan(/\w/)
end
puts f = line_cutter(file_read('alice_in_wonderland.txt'))
I get an error:
`scan': invalid byte sequence in UTF-8 (ArgumentError)
I found this online for untrusted website and tried to use it for my own code but it's not working. How can I remove this error?
Link to the file: File
The linked text file contains the following line:
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
If converting it isn't desired or possible then you have to tell Ruby that this file is ISO-8859-1 encoded. Otherwise the default external encoding is used (UTF-8 in your case). A possible way to do that is:
s = File.read('alice_in_wonderland.txt', encoding: 'ISO-8859-1')
s.encoding # => #<Encoding:ISO-8859-1>
Or even like this if you prefer your string UTF-8 encoded (see utf8everywhere.org):
s = File.read('alice_in_wonderland.txt', encoding: 'ISO-8859-1:UTF-8')
s.encoding # => #<Encoding:UTF-8>
It seems to work if you read the file directly from the page, maybe there's something funny about the local copy you have. Try this:
require 'net/http'
uri = 'http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/vip/teach/Algorithms/7_hash_RBtree_simpleDS/hw_hash_RBtree/alice_in_wonderland.txt'
scanned = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(uri)).body.scan(/\w/)

Ruby converting string encoding from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8 not working

I am trying to convert a string from ISO-8859-1 encoding to UTF-8 but I can't seem to get it work. Here is an example of what I have done in irb.
irb(main):050:0> string = 'Norrlandsvägen'
=> "Norrlandsvägen"
irb(main):051:0> string.force_encoding('iso-8859-1')
=> "Norrlandsv\xC3\xA4gen"
irb(main):052:0> string = string.encode('utf-8')
=> "Norrlandsvägen"
I am not sure why Norrlandsvägen in iso-8859-1 will be converted into Norrlandsvägen in utf-8.
I have tried encode, encode!, encode(destinationEncoding, originalEncoding), iconv, force_encoding, and all kinds of weird work-arounds I could think of but nothing seems to work. Can someone please help me/point me in the right direction?
Ruby newbie still pulling hair like crazy but feeling grateful for all the replies here... :)
Background of this question: I am writing a gem that will download an xml file from some websites (which will have iso-8859-1 encoding) and save it in a storage and I would like to convert it to utf-8 first. But words like Norrlandsvägen keep messing me up. Really any help would be greatly appreciated!
[UPDATE]: I realized running tests like this in the irb console might give me different behaviors so here is what I have in my actual code:
def convert_encoding(string, originalEncoding)
puts "#{string.encoding}" # ASCII-8BIT
string.encode(originalEncoding)
puts "#{string.encoding}" # still ASCII-8BIT
string.encode!('utf-8')
end
but the last line gives me the following error:
Encoding::UndefinedConversionError - "\xC3" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8
Thanks to #Amadan's answer below, I noticed that \xC3 actually shows up in irb if you run:
irb(main):001:0> string = 'ä'
=> "ä"
irb(main):002:0> string.force_encoding('iso-8859-1')
=> "\xC3\xA4"
I have also tried to assign a new variable to the result of string.encode(originalEncoding) but got an even weirder error:
newString = string.encode(originalEncoding)
puts "#{newString.encoding}" # can't even get to this line...
newString.encode!('utf-8')
and the error is Encoding::UndefinedConversionError - "\xC3" to UTF-8 in conversion from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1
I am still quite lost in all of this encoding mess but I am really grateful for all the replies and help everyone has given me! Thanks a ton! :)
You assign a string, in UTF-8. It contains ä. UTF-8 represents ä with two bytes.
string = 'ä'
string.encoding
# => #<Encoding:UTF-8>
string.length
# 1
string.bytes
# [195, 164]
Then you force the bytes to be interpreted as if they were ISO-8859-1, without actually changing the underlying representation. This does not contain ä any more. It contains two characters, Ã and ¤.
string.force_encoding('iso-8859-1')
# => "\xC3\xA4"
string.length
# 2
string.bytes
# [195, 164]
Then you translate that into UTF-8. Since this is not reinterpretation but translation, you keep the two characters, but now encoded in UTF-8:
string = string.encode('utf-8')
# => "ä"
string.length
# 2
string.bytes
# [195, 131, 194, 164]
What you are missing is the fact that you originally don't have an ISO-8859-1 string, as you would from your Web-service - you have gibberish. Fortunately, this is all in your console tests; if you read the response of the website using the proper input encoding, it should all work okay.
For your console test, let's demonstrate that if you start with a proper ISO-8859-1 string, it all works:
string = 'Norrlandsvägen'.encode('iso-8859-1')
# => "Norrlandsv\xE4gen"
string = string.encode('utf-8')
# => "Norrlandsvägen"
EDIT For your specific problem, this should work:
require 'net/https'
uri = URI.parse("https://rusta.easycruit.com/intranet/careerbuilder_se/export/xml/full")
options = {
:use_ssl => uri.scheme == 'https',
:verify_mode => OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE
}
response = Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, options) do |https|
https.request(Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri.path))
end
body = response.body.force_encoding('ISO-8859-1').encode('UTF-8')
There's a difference between force_encoding and encode. The former sets the encoding for the string, whereas the latter actually transcodes the contents of the string to the new encoding. Consequently, the following code causes your problem:
string = "Norrlandsvägen"
string.force_encoding('iso-8859-1')
puts string.encode('utf-8') # Norrlandsvägen
Whereas the following code will actually correctly encode your contents:
string = "Norrlandsvägen".encode('iso-8859-1')
string.encode!('utf-8')
Here's an example running in irb:
irb(main):023:0> string = "Norrlandsvägen".encode('iso-8859-1')
=> "Norrlandsv\xE4gen"
irb(main):024:0> string.encoding
=> #<Encoding:ISO-8859-1>
irb(main):025:0> string.encode!('utf-8')
=> "Norrlandsvägen"
irb(main):026:0> string.encoding
=> #<Encoding:UTF-8>
The above answer was spot on. Specifically this point here:
There's a difference between force_encoding and encode. The former
sets the encoding for the string, whereas the latter actually
transcodes the contents of the string to the new encoding.
In my situation, I had a text file with iso-8859-1 encoding. By default, Ruby uses UTF-8 encoding, so if you were to try to read the file without specifying the encoding, then you would get an error:
results = File.read(file)
results.encoding
=> #<Encoding:UTF-8>
results.split("\r\n")
ArgumentError: invalid byte sequence in UTF-8
You get an invalid byte sequence error because the characters in different encodings are represented by different byte lengths. Consequently, you would need to specify the encoding to the File API. Think of it like force_encoding:
results = File.read(file, encoding: "iso-8859-1")
So everything is good right? No, not if you want to start parsing the iso-8859-1 string with UTF-8 character encodings:
results = File.read(file, encoding: "iso-8859-1")
results.each do |line|
puts line.split('¬')
end
Encoding::CompatibilityError: incompatible character encodings: ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8
Why this error? Because '¬' is represented as UTF-8. You are using a UTF-8 character sequence against an ISO-8859-1 string. They are incompatible encodings. Consequently, after you read the File as a ISO-8859-1, then you can ask Ruby to encode that ISO-8859-1 into a UTF-8. And now you will be working with UTF-8 strings and thus no problems:
results = File.read(file, encoding: "iso-8859-1").encode('UTF-8')
results.encoding
results = results.split("\r\n")
results.each do |line|
puts line.split('¬')
end
Ultimately, with some Ruby APIs, you do not need to use force_encoding('ISO-8859-1'). Instead, you just specify the expected encoding to the API. However, you must convert it back to UTF-8 if you plan to parse it with UTF-8 strings.

Delete non-UTF characters from a string in Ruby?

How do I delete non-UTF8 characters from a ruby string? I have a string that has for example "xC2" in it. I want to remove that char from the string so that it becomes a valid UTF8.
This:
text.gsub!(/\xC2/, '')
returns an error:
incompatible encoding regexp match (ASCII-8BIT regexp with UTF-8 string)
I was looking at text.unpack('U*') and string.pack as well, but did not get anywhere.
You can use encode for that.
text.encode('UTF-8', :invalid => :replace, :undef => :replace)
For more info look into Ruby-Docs
You could do it like this
# encoding: utf-8
class String
def validate_encoding
chars.select(&:valid_encoding?).join
end
end
puts "testing\xC2 a non UTF-8 string".validate_encoding
#=>testing a non UTF-8 string
You text have ASCII-8BIT encoding, instead you should use this:
String.delete!("^\u{0000}-\u{007F}");
It will serve the same purpose.
You can use /n, as in
text.gsub!(/\xC2/n, '')
to force the Regexp to operate on bytes.
Are you sure this is what you want, though? Any Unicode character in the range [U+80, U+BF] will have a \xC2 in its UTF-8 encoded form.
Try Iconv
1.9.3p194 :001 > require 'iconv'
# => true
1.9.3p194 :002 > string = "testing\xC2 a non UTF-8 string"
# => "testing\xC2 a non UTF-8 string"
1.9.3p194 :003 > ic = Iconv.new('UTF-8//IGNORE', 'UTF-8')
# => #<Iconv:0x000000026c9290>
1.9.3p194 :004 > ic.iconv string
# => "testing a non UTF-8 string"
The best solution to this problem that I've found is this answer to the same question: https://stackoverflow.com/a/8711118/363293.
In short: "€foo\xA0".chars.select(&:valid_encoding?).join
data = '' if not (data.force_encoding("UTF-8").valid_encoding?)

Thor & YAML outputting as binary?

I'm using Thor and trying to output YAML to a file. In irb I get what I expect. Plain text in YAML format. But when part of a method in Thor, its output is different...
class Foo < Thor
include Thor::Actions
desc "bar", "test"
def set
test = {"name" => "Xavier", "age" => 30}
puts test
# {"name"=>"Xavier", "age"=>30}
puts test.to_yaml
# !binary "bmFtZQ==": !binary |-
# WGF2aWVy
# !binary "YWdl": 30
File.open("data/config.yml", "w") {|f| f.write(test.to_yaml) }
end
end
Any ideas?
All Ruby 1.9 strings have an encoding attached to them.
YAML encodes some non-UTF8 strings as binary, even when they look innocent, without any high-bit characters. You might think that your code is always using UTF8, but builtins can return non-UTF8 strings (ex File path routines).
To avoid binary encoding, make sure all your strings encodings are UTF-8 before calling to_yaml. Change the encoding with force_encoding("UTF-8") method.
For example, this is how I encode my options hash into yaml:
options = {
:port => 26000,
:rackup => File.expand_path(File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), "../sveg.rb"))
}
utf8_options = {}
options.each_pair { |k,v| utf8_options[k] = ((v.is_a? String) ? v.force_encoding("UTF-8") : v)}
puts utf8_options.to_yaml
Here is an example of yaml encoding simple strings as binary
>> x = "test"
=> "test"
>> x.encoding
=> #<Encoding:UTF-8>
>> x.to_yaml
=> "--- test\n...\n"
>> x.force_encoding "ASCII-8BIT"
=> "test"
>> x.to_yaml
=> "--- !binary |-\n dGVzdA==\n"
After version 1.9.3p125, ruby build-in YAML engine will treat all BINARY encoding differently than before. All you need to do is to set correct non-BINARY encoding before your String.to_yaml.
in Ruby 1.9, All String object have attached a Encoding object
and as following blog ( by James Edward Gray II ) mentioned, ruby have build in three type of encoding when String is generated:
http://blog.grayproductions.net/articles/ruby_19s_three_default_encodings.
One of encoding may solve your problem => Source code Encoding
This is the encoding of your source code, and can be specify by adding magic encoding string at the first line or second line ( if you have a sha-bang string at the first line of your source code )
the magic encoding code could be one of following:
# encoding: utf-8
# coding: utf-8
# -- encoding : utf-8 --
so in your case, if you use ruby 1.9.3p125 or later, this should be solved by adding one of magic encoding in the beginning of your code.
# encoding: utf-8
require 'thor'
class Foo < Thor
include Thor::Actions
desc "bar", "test"
def bar
test = {"name" => "Xavier", "age" => 30}
puts test
#{"name"=>"Xavier", "age"=>30}
puts test["name"].encoding.name
#UTF-8
puts test.to_yaml
#---
#name: Xavier
#age: 30
puts test.to_yaml.encoding.name
#UTF-8
end
end
I have been struggling with this using 1.9.3p545 on Windows - just with a simple hash containing strings - and no Thor.
The gem ZAML solves the problem quite simply:
require 'ZAML'
yaml = ZAML.dump(some_hash)
File.write(path_to_yaml_file, yaml)

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