From: William Tihen <tihen.william@...>
Date: 2003-02-19T02:09:52+09:00
Subject: Reading Text files with extended ASCII characters

Hello, 

I have reviewed the mailing list ruby-talk and I found some interesting
stuff, but I haven't seen the answer to reading (and creating) text
files with extended ASCII characters.

For example when I try to read a text file with the word:
D�n

I get:
D\366n

If I save this and read it in again I get:
D\\366n

Oddly many normal punctuation characters are also exscaped, these
include (at least):
" # 

I assume I am reading the text file incorrectly or not converting it to
something because when I read a line of a file I also get:
"what-ever-it-says\n"

I am reading and writing the file with the following commands:

File.delete ("fileout.html")  if FileTest.exist?("fileout.html")
File.open ('filein.html', "r") do |f_in|
  f_in.each_line do |line|
    reformated = line.dump	
    reformated = line.sub ( /"(.*)\\n"/,'\1')
    reformated = line.gsub (/\\([#"])/, '\1') 
    File.open ("fileout.html","a") {|f_out|f_out.print reformated } 
  end
end		

Is there a convient way to keep the extened ASCII characters (or convert
them to &ouml; and is there a convient way to convert this &ouml; and
convert it into an "�" and save it into a text file?

I look forward to guidance.

Thanks,

Bill
-- 
William H. Tihen, Technology Director
The American School in Switzerland (TASIS)
tihen.william@tasis.ch
http://www.tasis.ch/