Re: [Rd] Windows iconv() "failure" in certain locales

Uwe Ligges Wed, 28 Jun 2017 09:47:09 -0700


On 27.06.2017 17:36, Martin Maechler wrote:

This is a continuation of the R-devel thread with subject
  "suggestion to fix packageDescription() for Windows users" :

As I said there, a patch should rather address the underlying
problem in packageDescription rather than a kludgy workaround
patch for  citation().
(For that same reason, Ben Marwick proposed to fix
  packageDescription() rather than the symptom seen in citation().)

It's not hard to see that the problem is that  iconv() in
Windows does not always succeed to translate from "UTF-8" to the
"current locale", in the case mentioned there.

I'm giving some easier reproducible examples:  no need to install
half of tidyverse just to get citation("readr") :

x <- c("Ekstr\xf8m", "J\xf6reskog", "bi\xdfchen Z\xfcrcher")
Encoding(x1) <- "latin1"
xU <- iconv(x1, "latin1", "UTF-8")

Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "Chinese")

[1] "Chinese (Simplified)_People's Republic of China.936"


iconv(x1, "latin1", "") # NA NA NA

[1] NA NA NA

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "") # NA NA NA

[1] NA NA NA

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"


Interesting, I get chinese characters here.

Beside the comments from Duncan Murdoch:
iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="?")

etc. would be an alternative in case some characters really cannot beconverted into the target encoding and should perhaps be considered forthe time after Duncan commits the fix for the underlying porblem.


Best,
Uwe

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub = "byte")

[1] "Ekstr<c3><b8>m"         "J<c3><b6>reskog"        "bi<c3><9f>chen Z¨¹rcher"

Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "Arabic")

[1] "Arabic_Saudi Arabia.1256"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "")  # NA NA NA

[1] NA NA NA

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "")  # NA NA NA

[1] NA NA NA

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")

[1] "Ekstr\370m"         "J\366reskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="byte")

[1] "Ekstr<c3><b8>m"         "J<c3><b6>reskog"        "bi<c3><9f>chen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="?")

[1] "Ekstr??m"         "J??reskog"        "bi??chen Zürcher"

Etc... .  As the above is typically garbled between e-mail
transfer agents, I append both the iconv-Windows.R R script and
the corresponding iconv-Windows.Rout  R transcript to this
e-mail (using MIME type text/plain (easy using emacs for mail..)),
and they contain a bit more than the above.

Note that the above shows that using 'sub = *' and using
"//TRANSLIT" in case of a previous NA  result helps quite a bit,
in the sense that it gives much more information to see
   "J?reskog"  instead   NA.

I'm considering updating  packageDescription() to try these in
case it first returns NA.   This would make the citation() hack
unnecessary.

Martin


iconv-Windows.R


#### iconv() behavior depending on Locales  LC_CTYPE  in Windows
#### =======                       ==============================
###
### In a *shell* in Windows (emacs), after doing R.home() in R, use that to do 
something like
###   c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-devel/bin/R CMD BATCH iconv-Windows.R
###   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^= === ===== ===============  ==> producing  
iconv-Windows.Rout
###
sessionInfo() ## does not matter so much
## -- should be Windows to exhibit the problems

## From  help(iconv) 's  example : Using "latin1" European language letters:
x1 <- c("Ekstr\xf8m", "J\xf6reskog", "bi\xdfchen Z\xfcrcher")
Encoding(x1) <- "latin1"
xU <- iconv(x1, "latin1", "UTF-8")


## 2 locales that do not work well : ---------------------------------
Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "Chinese")

iconv(x1, "latin1", "") # NA NA NA
iconv(x1, "latin1", "//TRANSLIT") # perfect for Chinese
iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub = "byte")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "") # NA NA NA
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub = "byte")
##--
Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "Arabic")
iconv(x1, "latin1", "")  # NA NA NA
iconv(x1, "latin1", "//TRANSLIT") # not bad, but not perfect
iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="byte")
iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="?")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "")  # NA NA NA
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="byte")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="?")

## 2 locales that work well for these examples (no wonder) -----------

Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "German_Switzerland")
iconv(x1, "latin1", "")
iconv(x1, "latin1", "//TRANSLIT")
iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="?")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="?")
##--
Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "English")
iconv(x1, "latin1", "")
iconv(x1, "latin1", "//TRANSLIT")
iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="?")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")
iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="?")


iconv-Windows.Rout



R Under development (unstable) (2017-06-25 r72854) -- "Unsuffered Consequences"
Copyright (C) 2017 The R Foundation for Statistical Computing
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)

R is free software and comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.
You are welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.
Type 'license()' or 'licence()' for distribution details.

R is a collaborative project with many contributors.
Type 'contributors()' for more information and
'citation()' on how to cite R or R packages in publications.

Type 'demo()' for some demos, 'help()' for on-line help, or
'help.start()' for an HTML browser interface to help.
Type 'q()' to quit R.

#### iconv() behavior depending on Locales  LC_CTYPE  in Windows
#### =======                       ==============================
###
### In a *shell* in Windows (emacs), after doing R.home() in R, use that to do 
something like
###   c:/PROGRA~1/R/R-devel/bin/R CMD BATCH iconv-Windows.R
###   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^= === ===== ===============  ==> producing  
iconv-Windows.Rout
###
sessionInfo() ## does not matter so much

R Under development (unstable) (2017-06-25 r72854)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Running under: Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 (build 7601) Service Pack 1

Matrix products: default

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_3.5.0

## -- should be Windows to exhibit the problems

## From  help(iconv) 's  example : Using "latin1" European language letters:
x1 <- c("Ekstr\xf8m", "J\xf6reskog", "bi\xdfchen Z\xfcrcher")
Encoding(x1) <- "latin1"
xU <- iconv(x1, "latin1", "UTF-8")


## 2 locales that do not work well : ---------------------------------
Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "Chinese")

[1] "Chinese (Simplified)_People's Republic of China.936"


iconv(x1, "latin1", "") # NA NA NA

[1] NA NA NA

iconv(x1, "latin1", "//TRANSLIT") # perfect for Chinese

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub = "byte")

[1] "Ekstr<f8>m"         "J<f6>reskog"        "bi<df>chen Z¨¹rcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "") # NA NA NA

[1] NA NA NA

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub = "byte")

[1] "Ekstr<c3><b8>m"         "J<c3><b6>reskog"        "bi<c3><9f>chen Z¨¹rcher"

##--
Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "Arabic")

[1] "Arabic_Saudi Arabia.1256"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "")  # NA NA NA

[1] NA NA NA

iconv(x1, "latin1", "//TRANSLIT") # not bad, but not perfect

[1] "Ekstr\370m"         "J\366reskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="byte")

[1] "Ekstr<f8>m"         "J<f6>reskog"        "bi<df>chen Zürcher"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="?")

[1] "Ekstr?m"         "J?reskog"        "bi?chen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "")  # NA NA NA

[1] NA NA NA

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")

[1] "Ekstr\370m"         "J\366reskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="byte")

[1] "Ekstr<c3><b8>m"         "J<c3><b6>reskog"        "bi<c3><9f>chen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="?")

[1] "Ekstr??m"         "J??reskog"        "bi??chen Zürcher"


## 2 locales that work well for these examples (no wonder) -----------

Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "German_Switzerland")

[1] "German_Switzerland.1252"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "//TRANSLIT")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="?")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="?")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

##--
Sys.setlocale("LC_CTYPE", "English")

[1] "English_United States.1252"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "//TRANSLIT")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(x1, "latin1", "", sub="?")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "//TRANSLIT")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"

iconv(xU, "UTF-8", "", sub="?")

[1] "Ekstrøm"         "Jöreskog"        "bißchen Zürcher"


proc.time()

    user  system elapsed
    0.18    0.14    0.98



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Re: [Rd] Windows iconv() "failure" in certain locales

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