Javascript convert string from utf-8 to iso-8859-1

Question

I know this sounds bad, but it's necessary.

I have a HTML form on a site with utf-8 charset which is sent to a server which works with the iso-8859-1 charset. The problem is that the server doesn't understand correctly characters we use in Spain like à, á, è, é, ì, í, ò, ó, ù, ú, ñ, ç and so on. So if I search something like artículo it answers nothing found with artÃculo.

I send the form with ajaxform (http://malsup.com/jquery/form/), and the code loks like this:

$(".form-wrap, #pagina").on("submit", "form", function(event){
    event.preventDefault();
    $(this).ajaxSubmit({

        success: function(data){
            $("#temp").html(data);
            //Handle data in #temp div
            $("#temp").html('');
        }
    });
    return false;
});

My problem is: I have no acces to the search server and I cannot change the whole website to iso-8859-1 encodig since this would break other stuff.

I have alredy tried with no succes these scripts:

May I be doing everything wrong?

Edit: the escape function isn't useful for me as it turns these spacial chars into % prefixed codes which are useless to the server, it then searches for art%EDculo.

Edit using the encodeURIComponent function the server understands art%C3%ADculo. P.S. I just use the word artículo for testing but the solution it should cover all special chars.

Try good old [`escape`](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/escape) to encode your strings. Better yet, find the one who runs that server and [hit them with a chicken](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3ln6mp0HNM) — georg, Apr 08 '16 at 08:59
Possible duplicate of [How do I transcode a Javascript string to ISO-8859-1?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2283829/how-do-i-transcode-a-javascript-string-to-iso-8859-1) — Matthew Herbst, Apr 08 '16 at 09:05
@georg Yes i would hit him with a chicken (but a living one) if I could, escape isn't useful as it leaves the char code prefixed with an `%`. @matthew-herbst I'm not sure if it really is a duplicate, I have alredy tried the answers from that question but it doesn't help. — Falk, Apr 08 '16 at 10:17

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 08 '16 at 10:58

2

I have a HTML form on a site with utf-8 charset which is sent to a server which works with the iso-8859-1 charset.

You can try setting form accept-charset:

<form accept-charset="iso-8859-1">
....
</form>

answered Apr 08 '16 at 10:58

Ginden

5,149
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I Also tied this, it seems the browser just ignores it and sends utf-8. – Falk Apr 08 '16 at 11:08
2

@Falk: Sounds more like your `ajaxSubmit` plugin ignores it, not the browser. – Bergi Apr 11 '16 at 21:03
It could be, I'll think about it. Anyway the problem is solved, finally we got access to the server. – Falk Apr 11 '16 at 21:09
I had the same situation with utf8 on client and iso8859-1 on server and this fixed my issue – Atom999 May 02 '18 at 13:55

score -4 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 11 '16 at 20:59

-4

Finally the one who runs that server gave us access to the server and we made an utf-8 compatible php script. So I don't care any more.

answered Apr 11 '16 at 20:59

Falk

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Javascript convert string from utf-8 to iso-8859-1

2 Answers2