Hi Eric,

> In Perl, how do I specify MARC-8 when reading (decoding) and writing
> (encoding) data?

You can't.  MARC-8 is a character set that is unknown to the operating system.  Your best bet is to convert MARC-8-encoded records into UTF-8. 

> ...it is converted it Perl's
> internal encoding (UTF-8)

As an FTY, UTF-8 is *not* Perl's internal encoding.

-- Michael

# Michael Doran, Systems Librarian
# University of Texas at Arlington
# 817-272-5326 office
# 817-688-1926 mobile
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# http://rocky.uta.edu/doran/



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Eric
> Lease Morgan
> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 1:18 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [CODE4LIB] marc-8
> 
> In Perl, how do I specify MARC-8 when reading (decoding) and writing
> (encoding) data?
> 
> Character encoding is the bane of my existence. I have learned that when
> reading from a file I ought to specify the type of encoding the file is in
> and decode accordingly, or else. Once read, it is converted it Perl's
> internal encoding (UTF-8) and can be manipulated. Similarly, when writing I
> am expected to specify the encoding. Both the reading (decoding) and the
> writing (encoding) can be done with the Encode module. Here is a some code
> illustrating what I'm trying to do with MARC records which are apparently in
> MARC-8:
> 
>   # require
>   use Encode qw( encode decode );
> 
>   # initialize
>   my $batch = MARC::Batch->new( 'USMARC', './records.mrc' );
>   open OUT, ' > updated.mrc';
> 
>   # process each record
>   while ( my $marc = $batch->next ) {
> 
>     # get the title
>     my $_245 = decode( 'FOO', $marc->title );
> 
>     # do cool stuff with the title here
> 
>     # output the cool stuff
>     print OUT encode( 'FOO', $_245 );
> 
>   }
> 
>   # done
>   close OUT;
>   exit;
> 
> 
> My problem is, I don't know what to put in place of FOO. What is the official
> name of MARC-8's encoding scheme?
> 
> --
> Eric "The Ugly American" Morgan
> University of Notre Dame
> 
> (574) 631-8604