in reply to UTF-8 webpage output from MySQL

I better take this question all the way to the end. After reading the comments I've decided to try the Template::Alloy module. I am using CGI::Applications load_tmpl function to load my templates with HTML::Template. Here is an example of a basic function with the call to load_tmpl: 

sub showMemberStart {
# application object
my $self = shift;

# get cgi query object
my $q = $self->query();
my %post = $q->Vars;
        
# get session object        
my $session = $self->session;            

# database handle
my $dbh = $self->param('dbh');
  
# load template files
my $tmpl = $self->param('member_start' => $self->load_tmpl('member_sta
+rt.phtml', die_on_bad_params => 0));
  
# output
return $tmpl->output;
}

[download]

How would I go about implementing Template::Alloy into this code? I rather not change the following rows: 

# load template files
my $tmpl = $self->param('member_start' => $self->load_tmpl('member_sta
+rt.phtml', die_on_bad_params => 0));

[download]

Should I override the load_tmpl function? Anybody have an idea how this would be done?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: UTF-8 webpage output from MySQL
by moritz (Cardinal) on Jan 23, 2008 at 06:48 UTC
    I think overriding load_tmpl is a good idea.

    Look in the source code what that method does, and in your version substitute the call to HTML::Template->new(...) by a call to Template::Alloy->new(..., ENCODING => 'UTF-8').

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

      Ok, I did an override of the load_tmpl function like this: 

      sub load_tmpl {
    my $self = shift;
    my ($tmpl_file, @extra_params) = @_;

    # add tmpl_path to path array if one is set, otherwise add a path 
+arg
    if (my $tmpl_path = $self->tmpl_path) {
        my @tmpl_paths = (ref $tmpl_path eq 'ARRAY') ? @$tmpl_path : $
+tmpl_path;
        my $found = 0;
        for( my $x = 0; $x < @extra_params; $x += 2 ) {
            if ($extra_params[$x] eq 'path' and
            ref $extra_params[$x+1] eq 'ARRAY') {
                unshift @{$extra_params[$x+1]}, @tmpl_paths;
                $found = 1;
                last;
            }
        }
        push(@extra_params, path => [ @tmpl_paths ]) unless $found;
    }

    my %tmpl_params = ();
    my %ht_params = @extra_params;
    %ht_params = () unless keys %ht_params;

    # Define our extension if doesn't already exist;
    $self->{__CURRENT_TMPL_EXTENSION} = '.html' unless defined $self->
+{__CURRENT_TMPL_EXTENSION};

    # Define a default templat name based on the current run mode
    unless (defined $tmpl_file) {
        $tmpl_file = $self->get_current_runmode . $self->{__CURRENT_TM
+PL_EXTENSION};    
    }

    $self->call_hook('load_tmpl', \%ht_params, \%tmpl_params, $tmpl_fi
+le);

    #require HTML::Template;
    # let's check $tmpl_file and see what kind of parameter it is - we
    # now support 3 options: scalar (filename), ref to scalar (the
    # actual html/template content) and reference to FILEHANDLE
    #my $t = undef;
    #if ( ref $tmpl_file eq 'SCALAR' ) {
    #    $t = HTML::Template->new_scalar_ref( $tmpl_file, %ht_params )
+;
    #} elsif ( ref $tmpl_file eq 'GLOB' ) {
    #    $t = HTML::Template->new_filehandle( $tmpl_file, %ht_params )
+;
    #} else {
    #    $t = HTML::Template->new_file($tmpl_file, %ht_params);
    #}
    
        require Template::Alloy;
          
    my $t = undef;
    if ( ref $tmpl_file eq 'SCALAR' ) {
               $t = Template::Alloy->new(type => 'filename', source =>
+ $tmpl_file, %ht_params, ENCODING => 'UTF-8');
    } elsif ( ref $tmpl_file eq 'GLOB' ) {
           $t = Template::Alloy->new(type => 'scalarref', source => $t
+mpl_file, %ht_params, ENCODING => 'UTF-8');
    } else {
        $t = Template::Alloy->new(type => 'filename', source => $tmpl_
+file, %ht_params, ENCODING => 'UTF-8');
    }
        
    if (keys %tmpl_params) {
        $t->param(%tmpl_params);
    }

    return $t;
}

      [download]

      It works, but I still get strange characters. My template files displays the strange question mark symbol (firefox), square emtpy box (IE) instead of å, ä and ö.

      &#65533;ndra ditt l&#65533;senord

      [download]

      The data from my database displays as before

      Törjebjöåärne

      [download]

      I have tried to save my template files as UTF-8 without BOM, without any success. Am I doing some kind of double encoding? Why does it give me different characters, sometimes an ö will give me &#65533; and sometimes ö

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]
        That's very hard to guess without seeing your code.

        Since you have a binmode STDOUT, ':utf8;' somewhere, you don't need to encode the template's output anymore. Chances are that you don't need to encode anything at all.

        The next debugging step is: check the data from the database. Do these strings have the UTF8 flag set? (remeber Devel::Peek.). You can also check the codepoints to see if the data arrived correctly.

        Check the same thing for the tempalte's output.

        Also make sure that you have warnings enabled, and check your error.log for warnings.

[reply]
[d/l]

In Section Seekers of Perl Wisdom