Re: Strange issue with special characters and "select failed" messages

Hi,

[email protected] was heard to say:

> Whenever I add an entry with special chars (such as the german ö ä ü), they
> are mangled in my mySQL Database. If I fix them in the table (with
> phpmyadmin) they are correct. Then they are correctly downloaded if I query
> for this reference. So this is a "one way" issue, that makes the whole story
> even more strange. Can you help me with this?

Character encodings are a slightly hairy issue, and it all depends on how you
add your data and how you set up your databases. Whenever the encoding of the
data does not match what RefDB expects you're likely to run into problems.

RefDB databases use the default character encoding of your MySQL setup unless
you specify a different encoding (createdb -E encoding). Incoming data are
automatically converted to the database encoding as long as RefDB can properly
determine the input encoding. risx data are XML data, so the encoding can be
inferred from the leading processing instruction. If none is given, UTF-8 is
assumed. RIS data are imported according to the refdbcrc "fromencoding" setting
which is ISO-8859-1 by default. You can also use the -E switch of the addref
command to override the defaults.

If you have problems adding references with umlauts etc., then most likely your
editor saves the data using a different encoding than what RefDB is configured
to use. Please check that the actually used encoding appears in the XML
processing instruction for risx data and in the "fromencoding" setting for RIS
data. Feel free to send me gzipped input files if you're not sure which
encoding they use.

>
> The second issue is the "select failed" message when I should get a
> reference. For example: :ID:>0 gives this message or :AU:~Muel where
> :AU:~Rodd works. How can I resolve this issue=
>

Could you please send me the reference(s) matched by :AU:~Muel? I recall fixing
a similar problem recently. Chances are that this problem is already fixed in
the CVS version and maybe also in the latest prerelease.

regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
[email protected]
(Spam-protected email: replace the quadrupeds with "mhoenicka")
http://www.mhoenicka.de



-------------------------------------------------------
This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language
that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast
and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory!
http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid0944&bid$1720&dat1642