[Using Sakai] Short URLs for files with non ASCII characters

Steve Swinsburg steve.swinsburg at gmail.com
Mon Aug 19 03:34:34 PDT 2013


It's totally possible there is a weird encoding happening in the URL shortener, I wrote it ;)
If that's the case i'll fix it, I just want to be sure. I'll upload a file with accented characters to my instance and test.

Cheers,
S

Sent from my iPad

On 19/08/2013, at 14:31, Rafael Morales Gamboa <rmorales at suv.udg.mx> wrote:

> It looks like the database was setup as UTF-8 from the beginning, because that is said in the instructions to install Sakai CLE 2.9. I do not remember changing it to UTF-8 after installation. The fact is that the full URL uses UTF-8, but the shortener encodes it as Latin 1.
> 
> Would there be any way to test if the database was not created as UTF-8? Could someone who is totally sure its database was created as UTF-8 try to reply my case? It would require to upload a document from Windows with an 'ó' (accute o) in its name, and then generate a short URL for it.
> 
> 
> 2013/8/18 Steve Swinsburg <steve.swinsburg at gmail.com>
>> If your database was not setup as UTF-8 to begin with, then you may need to export it all out and re-import it with the correct character set. I haven't done this though.
>> 
>> 
>> On Mon, Aug 19, 2013 at 9:56 AM, Rafael Morales Gamboa <rmorales at suv.udg.mx> wrote:
>>> I searched the url_randomised_mappings_t, ran the results through od, and found that
>>> 
>>> 0000000   1   1  \t   H   a   q   X   O   C  \t   h   t   t   p   :   /
>>> 0000020   /   v   i   r   t   u   a   l   .   c   u   d   i   .   e   d
>>> 0000040   u   .   m   x   :   8   0   8   0   /   a   c   c   e   s   s
>>> 0000060   /   c   o   n   t   e   n   t   /   g   r   o   u   p   /   8
>>> 0000100   b   f   7   3   c   8   c   -   0   9   6   8   -   4   9   1
>>> 0000120   4   -   8   c   4   4   -   9   1   8   d   7   6   f   a   3
>>> 0000140   8   9   6   /   I   n   t   r   o   d   u   c   c   i 363   n
>>> 0000160       a       S   a   k   a   i       -       P   e   r   s   p
>>> 0000200   e   c   t   i   v   a       d   e   l       U   s   u   a   r
>>> 0000220   i   o   .   p   d   f  \n
>>> 
>>> So the URL is stored using #f3 (octal 363) for the 'ó' (accute o). In other words, Sakai/MySQL is using the ISO 8859-1 encoding instead of UTF-8 to store shortened the URL.
>>> 
>>> Regards,
>>> Rafael 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2013/8/18 Steve Swinsburg <steve.swinsburg at gmail.com>
>>>> Go to the database and see what the full url is for this shortened URL. Does it match the actual resource URL? 
>>>> 
>>>> Cheers,
>>>> Steve
>>>> 
>>>> Sent from my iPad
>>>> 
>>>> On 17/08/2013, at 7:23, Rafael Morales Gamboa <rmorales at suv.udg.mx> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Actually, I was wrong. Tomcat is configured with URIEncoding="UTF-8" and the database seems to be OK (despite de fact that there is no character_set_server=utf8 in my.conf:
>>>>> 
>>>>> mysql> SELECT default_character_set_name FROM information_schema.SCHEMATA S
>>>>>     -> WHERE schema_name = "sakai";
>>>>> +----------------------------+
>>>>> | default_character_set_name |
>>>>> +----------------------------+
>>>>> | utf8                       |
>>>>> +----------------------------+
>>>>> 1 row in set (0.00 sec)
>>>>> 
>>>>> The question is whether I should add that configuration line to my.conf, anayway.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>> Rafael
>>>>> 
>>>>> El 15/08/2013 06:50 p.m., Mike DeSimone escribió:
>>>>>> Hi Rafael,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Sometimes things like this are due to database settings and tomcat connector settings.  Can you confirm the 8080 connector has URIEncoding="UTF-8"?  Also, if this is MySQL, then ensure this is in the my.cnf: character_set_server=utf8 and the database was created with utf8 encoding.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> more info can be found here: https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+CLE+2.9+Release+Notes#SakaiCLE29releasenotes-Databasesupport
>>>>>> and: https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=82249313 (section 3 for tomcat setup)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I also have found that files cannot easily be renamed in the Sakai UI.  Not sure if there's any other solution than your suggestion.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> *********************************************
>>>>>> Mike DeSimone
>>>>>> Director of Enterprise Operations
>>>>>> Asahi Net International, Inc. (ANI)
>>>>>> O: +1 (602) 490-0473
>>>>>> W: anisakai.com
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> **********************************************
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> On Wed, Aug 14, 2013 at 4:25 PM, Rafael Morales Gamboa <rmorales at suv.udg.mx>             wrote:
>>>>>>> Hello,
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> On Sakai 2.9.1 I uploaded a file to Resources that was called 'Introducción a Sakai - Perspectiva del Usuario.pdf' in my computer, and I renamed it to 'Introducción a Sakai.pdf' in Resources and made it public. Under properties I can see now its URL:
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> http://virtual.cudi.edu.mx:8080/access/content/group/8bf73c8c-0968-4914-8c44-918d76fa3896/Introducci%C3%B3n%20a%20Sakai%20-%20Perspectiva%20del%20Usuario.pdf
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> So, the URL is composed from the original name of the file in my computer, and I cannot see a way to change it unless renaming the file in my computer before uploading it to Resources.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Now, if I choose the Short URL option I get the URL http://virtual.cudi.edu.mx:8080/x/HaqXOC, and at least three distinct behaviours in browser (latest public releases of them):
>>>>>>> In Firefox, I get error 404.
>>>>>>> In Chrome, it is translated to http://virtual.cudi.edu.mx:8080/access/content/group/8bf73c8c-0968-4914-8c44-918d76fa3896/Introducci%F3n%20a%20Sakai%20-%20Perspectiva%20del%20Usuario.pdf ('ó' is encoded as %F3 instead of %C%B3) and I get error 404.
>>>>>>> In Internet Explorer it works! ('ó' is just 'ó').
>>>>>>> The questions are (1) why do I get all this different behaviours? and (2) how can I get it to work on all these browsers?
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>> Rafael
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> 
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>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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