Hi there, it''s not really rubyonrails but because it fits into the web-development I think I''m in the right forum. I''m trying to decode a string I read from an online xml-file and compare it to another, locally stored one. The locally stored string is: p localstring #=> "~St0rm€lite~" p localstring.encoding #=> #<Encoding:UTF-8> The xml-file is saved as utf-8 and was read via HPricot. p remotestring #=> "~St0rm€lite~" p remotestring.encoding #=> #<Encoding:UTF-8> Now I want to decode the remote string. To do this I''m using htmlentities4.2.0 installed via gem, however it breaks the string completely: require ''htmlentities'' htmldecoder = HTMLEntities.new p htmldecoder.decode(remotestring) #=> "~St0rm\xE2\x82\xAClite~" p htmldecoder.decode(remotestring).encoding #=> #<Encoding:ASCII-8BIT> I''m trying to fix this the past 3-4 days but I didn''t find a solution. I tried to convert it again to utf-8 but this make the string getting even worser. Also converting the local-string to ASCII-8BIT fails. I looked up my system configuration: My shell is running as UTF-8, also I installed ''locales'': p Locale.current #=> [#<Locale::Tag::Posix: en_US.UTF-8>] Is there any other settings I need to look up and configure? If I try the script on another computer I get the right results but here it keeps switching to ASCII-8BIT. My Ruby version is 1.9 I would be happy if someone could help me. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk-/JYPxA39Uh5TLH3MbocFF+G/Ez6ZCGd0@public.gmane.org To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.