What _ought_ to be easiest of all is getting our ILS's to NEVER export 
Marc8 _ever_ again.  UTF8 only.

Sadly, that only ought to be easiest.

But IMO there's no reason any of us should be dealing with Marc8 ever 
again.  The only thing that should deal in Marc8 is an ILS, and should 
only input it, NEVER output it, UTF8 only, please!

But this is not the world we live in.

I tried to figure out how to custom add a new encoding to ruby 1.9 with 
the idea of adding Marc8 as an actuall  ruby 1.9 character encoding 
supported same as any other built in char encoding, but I couldn't 
figure out if that was possible or how to do it.  If it was possible to 
do at that low level in ruby 1.9, it might justify the time to do it.

On 10/24/2011 2:55 PM, Doran, Michael D wrote:
> Eric,
>
> Sometimes for grandpa Perl stuff -- especially as concerns charsets and/or internationalization -- it's worth pinging these lists:
>
> 	[log in to unmask] (yes, still alive and kicking)
>
> 	[log in to unmask] (very low traffic list, but some knowledgeable subscribers)
>
> -- Michael
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Doran, Michael D
>> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 1:48 PM
>> To: 'Code for Libraries'
>> Subject: RE: [CODE4LIB] marc-8
>>
>>> Okay. How do I go about converting MARC-8 encoded records into UTF-8?
>> In Perl... using the handy MARC::Charset module (tip 'o the hat to Ed
>> Summers, and now maintained by Galen Charlton).
>>
>> -- Michael
>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
>> Eric
>>> Lease Morgan
>>> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2011 1:39 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] marc-8
>>>
>>> On Oct 24, 2011, at 2:34 PM, Doran, Michael D wrote:
>>>
>>>>> 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.
>>>
>>> /me throws his hands up in the air and screams!
>>>
>>> Okay. How do I go about converting MARC-8 encoded records into UTF-8? I
>> know
>>> yaz-marcdump changes the encoding bit in MARC leaders. Does it also
>> convert
>>> MARC-8 characters to UTF-8? (I guess I could simply try it and see what
>>> happens.)
>>>
>>> --
>>> Eric Morgan