Sébastien Nadeau wrote:

" To mark FILEHANDLE as UTF-8, use :utf8 or :encoding(utf8) . :utf8 just marks the data as UTF-8 without further checking, while :encoding(utf8) checks the data for actually being valid UTF-8. More details can be found in PerlIO::encoding. " This quote from the binmode perldoc suggests that one must take good care about what is written to the filehandle when the ":uft8" layer is used. It it's not well formed uft-8, the result might end up in something unexpected.

Joe Atzberger wrote:

That is just one form that happens to be used for existing filehandles. You can also find similar code in "open" statements (see rebuild_zebra.pl) and the same code in different forms like: binmode(STDOUT,":utf8");

We should setting it (or something like it) where needed.

Exactly where is it needed? Is it required for web page output to stdout? Is it required when Koha creates a CSV file as output? Is the situation as it stands a bug? From what M.Nadeau indicates, we should be using :encoding(utf8), which ensures that our UTF-8 output is valid. It is another form of turning on warnings. ":utf8" is not enough. The problem with UTF-8 and non-Latin character sets in general is that most of the developers never venture into accented character sets and thus support for UTF-8 has been late in coming to Koha. We are lucky to have many non-English language contributors who can keep the project "honest" about character encoding. I must admit that I myself do not test or develop any software using UTF-8, unless perhaps it is turned on by default. I certainly would not be aware if non-English alphabets were being broken by anything I did to the software. This concerns me and I would like to ensure we do as much as possible in the Koha software to ensure we get it right. cheers rickw -- _________________________________ Rick Welykochy || Praxis Services It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it. -- Al Gore, Vice President