ruby on rails - export to excel french character -

i have following method on on action export excel list of user:

def users_report     @users = kid.where(confirmation_token: nil).paginate(:page => params[:page], :per_page => 30)     @userxls = kid.where(confirmation_token: nil)     respond_to |format|         format.html         format.xls { send_data @userxls.to_csv({col_sep: "\t"}) }     end end 

on model to_csv method:

def self.to_csv(options = {})     csv.generate(options) |csv|     csv << ["name", "surname", "e-mail", "age", "school", "class", "native language", "practised language", "conversations same native", "convserations different native", "message same native", "message different native", "posts", "clossed/finished calls", "missed calls", "connections per week", "nb of foreign friends", "nb of friends same country", "activation date", "email parent", "parent activated"]         kids = array.new         all.each |kid|             if kid.user_role != "admin"                 k   = array.new                 kid.name = kid.name rescue "no name"                 k << kid.name                 kid.surname = kid.surname rescue "no surname"                 k << kid.surname                 kid.email = kid.email rescue "no email"                 k << kid.email                 k << kid.age rescue "no age"                 if !kid.school.nil?                     k << kid.school.name                 else                     k << "no school"                 end                 if kid.courses.empty?                     k << "no courses"                 else                     k << kid.courses.first.name                 end                  if !kid.native_languages.empty?                     languages = array.new                     kid.native_languages.each |lang|                         languages << language.find(lang).name                     end                     k << languages                 else                     k << "no native language"                 end                 if !kid.practice_languages.empty?                     languages = array.new                     kid.practice_languages.each |lang|                         languages << language.find(lang).name                     end                     k << languages                 else                     k << "no practise language"                 end                  k << kid.number_of_native_conversations rescue "0"                 k << kid.number_of_foreign_conversations rescue "0"                 k << kid.number_of_native_messages rescue "0"                 k << kid.number_of_foreign_messages rescue "0"                 k << kid.number_of_activity_posts rescue "0"                 k << kid.number_of_finished_closed_calls rescue "0"                 k << kid.number_of_missed_calls rescue "0"                 k << kid.avg_of_connections_week rescue "0"                 k << kid.number_of_foreign_friends rescue "0"                 k << kid.number_of_friends_same_country rescue "0"                 k << kid.confirmed_at.try(:strftime, "%d/%m/%y") rescue "0"                 k << kid.tutor.email rescue "no parent email"                 k << kid.tutor.confirmed? rescue "no parent email"                  kids << k             end         end         kids.each |k|             csv << k         end   end end 

but on excel file i'm getting names jérôme instead of jérôme. tried:

# encoding: utf-8 

on view tried every field

.force_encoding("utf-8")  

but still have problem. please need this.

thanks in advance

cvs::generate understands option :encoding (see ruby api).

so use

format.xls { send_data @userxls.to_csv({col_sep: "\t", encoding: 'utf-8'}) } 

you may think separating representation , business logic. use csv_builder provides views user_report.csv.csvbuilder define csv output.

cvs_builder uses instance variable @encoding specify output character encoding.

edit

it seems, generated csv encoded in utf-8 read if iso-8859-1 aka. latin-1.
may want try generate csv in latin-1 excel has issues importing utf-8 csv files.
depending on ruby or rails version, have use iso-8859-1 instead of latin-1.