From: Don Norcott <dnorcott@...>
Date: 2010-11-18T01:01:38+09:00
Subject: Extended ASCII character handeling

"200 Millionen Jahre später                              # 17.39
\n",
"200 Millionen Jahre später                              #  9.87
3404211707    \n",
"A l'assaut de l'invisible                         1977 #  4.91
\n",
"A l'assaut de l'invisible                         1990 #  5.18
226603779      \n",

The above 4 lines are data I was attempting to load into an array to
test some code.  I was getting what I thought were strange results until
I realized not all characters were being loaded into the element
resulting in column alignment problems.

The data above was cut from a file that had been manipulated a dozen
times in ruby arrays before being written to a file.  So it appears the
default way ruby handles extended ASCII(?) is fine.

I have two questions
1) Should I ever have to worry about data being scraped from web pages
not being handled correctly by ruby.

2)How do I flag this data to allow me to manipulate it properly. That is
load it into an array or write to a file.

Tried playing with the following but even if the code below is correct
the extended ascii characters are lost by the time it gets to IRB

str = String.new
str.encode(("US-ASCII")
str = "Millionen Jahre später"

Any suggestions where I might find some insight.

Thanks Don

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