I've tracked down a problem with a Gem I am trying to use. It turns out that it has some non-ascii characters in it; for example the second quote in the regular expression below is not an ASCII character:
parts = self.split( %r/( [:.;?!][ ] | (?:[ ]|^)["] )/x )
It produces errors like this:
:in `require': /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/gems/1.9.1/gems/webby-0.9.4/lib/webby/core_ext/string.rb:14: invalid multibyte char (US-ASCII) (SyntaxError)
I fixed it by adding the following to the top of the offending file:
# encoding: utf-8
My questions:
* Is this the preferred fix?
* Is there a way to work around this problem without modifying the Gem?
* Is there an easy way to see if gems have non-ascii source files but haven't included an encoding comment? Some kind of Ruby warning for instance.
I've tracked down a problem with a Gem I am trying to use. It turns out that it has some non-ascii characters in it; for example the second quote in the regular expression below is not an ASCII character:
parts = self.split( %r/( [:.;?!] | (?:|^)["“] )/x )
It produces errors like this:
:in `require': /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/gems/1.9.1/gems/webby-0.9.4/lib/webby/core_ext/string.rb:14: invalid multibyte char (US-ASCII) (SyntaxError)
I fixed it by adding the following to the top of the offending file:
# encoding: utf-8
My questions:
* Is this the preferred fix?
Yes.
* Is there a way to work around this problem without modifying the Gem?
File a bug with the author and have them release a new version, otherwise no.
* Is there an easy way to see if gems have non-ascii source files but haven't included an encoding comment? Some kind of Ruby warning for instance.
ruby -c will do this for you.
···
On Jun 22, 2009, at 22:26, Martin Hess wrote:
So is it considered best practice to put an encoding comment at the begging of all your files now days? Such as:
# encoding: utf-8
or whatever encoding you like. is this what people are doing or are they doing it one off for the files that have non-ascii characters?
It seems to me that if you have a modern editor it isn't too hard to accidentally slip in some non-ascii characters resulting in some pain down the road.
···
On Jun 23, 2009, at 12:25 AM, Eric Hodel wrote:
On Jun 22, 2009, at 22:26, Martin Hess wrote:
I've tracked down a problem with a Gem I am trying to use. It turns out that it has some non-ascii characters in it; for example the second quote in the regular expression below is not an ASCII character:
parts = self.split( %r/( [:.;?!] | (?:|^)["“] )/x )
It produces errors like this:
:in `require': /opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/gems/1.9.1/gems/webby-0.9.4/lib/webby/core_ext/string.rb:14: invalid multibyte char (US-ASCII) (SyntaxError)
I fixed it by adding the following to the top of the offending file:
# encoding: utf-8
My questions:
* Is this the preferred fix?
Yes.
* Is there a way to work around this problem without modifying the Gem?
File a bug with the author and have them release a new version, otherwise no.
* Is there an easy way to see if gems have non-ascii source files but haven't included an encoding comment? Some kind of Ruby warning for instance.
ruby -c will do this for you.
So is it considered best practice to put an encoding comment at the begging
of all your files now days? Such as:
\# encoding: utf\-8
or whatever encoding you like. is this what people are doing or are they
doing it one off for the files that have non-ascii characters?
It seems to me that if you have a modern editor it isn't too hard to
accidentally slip in some non-ascii characters resulting in some pain down
the road.
It isn't hard to mess up any code in a lot of ways, so as usual, try
to run/test it before you release/deploy 
That also means that using Ruby 1.9.1 for your daily coding might be a
better choice, otherwise you'll have to use multiruby.
···
On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 1:43 AM, Martin Hess<martinhess@me.com> wrote:
On Jun 23, 2009, at 12:25 AM, Eric Hodel wrote:
On Jun 22, 2009, at 22:26, Martin Hess wrote:
I've tracked down a problem with a Gem I am trying to use. It turns out
that it has some non-ascii characters in it; for example the second quote in
the regular expression below is not an ASCII character:
parts = self.split( %r/( [:.;?!] | (?:|^)["“] )/x )
It produces errors like this:
:in \`require':
/opt/local/lib/ruby1.9/gems/1.9.1/gems/webby-0.9.4/lib/webby/core_ext/string.rb:14:
invalid multibyte char (US-ASCII) (SyntaxError)
I fixed it by adding the following to the top of the offending file:
\# encoding: utf\-8
My questions:
* Is this the preferred fix?
Yes.
* Is there a way to work around this problem without modifying the Gem?
File a bug with the author and have them release a new version, otherwise
no.
* Is there an easy way to see if gems have non-ascii source files but
haven't included an encoding comment? Some kind of Ruby warning for
instance.
ruby -c will do this for you.
--
Michael Fellinger
CTO, The Rubyists, LLC
972-996-5199
With hoe, it's as easy as:
multiruby_setup the_usual # only once
rake multi
···
On Jun 24, 2009, at 19:08, Michael Fellinger wrote:
On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 1:43 AM, Martin Hess<martinhess@me.com> wrote:
So is it considered best practice to put an encoding comment at the begging
of all your files now days? Such as:
# encoding: utf-8
or whatever encoding you like. is this what people are doing or are they
doing it one off for the files that have non-ascii characters?
It seems to me that if you have a modern editor it isn't too hard to
accidentally slip in some non-ascii characters resulting in some pain down
the road.
It isn't hard to mess up any code in a lot of ways, so as usual, try
to run/test it before you release/deploy
That also means that using Ruby 1.9.1 for your daily coding might be a
better choice, otherwise you'll have to use multiruby.