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Greek letters of attributes are not shown correctly in FME

  • 25 September 2015
  • 8 replies
  • 7 views

I am using FME 2014 in order to manipulate some shape files. When I load and inspect the content of the shapes file, I get the following problem:

 

 

Although all the greek characters of the content is shown correctly (in UTF-8), the titles of each column (seeing in data inspector) are not recognized. A similar problem I had some time ago with an excel file which had content in greek. In that case also I could see the content of the excel cells but I could see the names of the tabs (sheets). Back then it was enough to rename the sheets to latin characters but now I don't have this luxury (some hundreds of shape files).

 

 

What is the issue here? Is there some internal encoding properties in FME? I see I have the same problem in FME 2015.

 

 

Moreover, I try to import a shapefile with greek characters and FME can not read it correctly. In the directory field it shows question marks instead of greek characters and its impossible to load it!
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Best answer by jovitaatsafe 10 January 2019, 22:21

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8 replies

Userlevel 4
Hi

 

 

When creating the Shape reader, which character set did you specify? Example:

 

 

 

 

You might also want to try setting it to Unicode utf-8.

 

 

There is also a slight possibility that it is a limitation of the Data Inspector and its column headings, but you'll probably have to contact Safe support to get that confirmed.

 

 

David
Hello, Thanks for the answer. I had tried both of the options but with no success. Moreover this issue can not be only related with the Data Inspector cause I get the same problem when I expand the reader's attributes as seen: [image: Inline image 1]
Userlevel 4
Hi

 

 

In that case, I recommend sending a minimalist sample (workspace and a small dataset) to reproduce the issue to Safe support (https://knowledge.safe.com/knowledgeSubmitCase).

 

 

David

I have the same problem with excel column headers with greek characters not being read correctly when using an excel reader. I have submitted a case with a sample file to support@safe.

Badge +11

Hi @andybev,

 

Currently, FME handles attribute names with systems default encoding and doesn't have the same encoding application as the data values, which is why the values are displaying correctly but the header row is not. Our team is working hard on extending that functionality for the future (in either a future 2019 release or 2020) so that the attribute names will be handled correctly. The issue is FMEENGINE-56578. Thanks everyone for raising the issue and for your patience.

 

In the meantime, a potential workaround is to set your systems encoding on your computer to the desired encoding. You can find that your Region and Language settings on Windows, and you can set the Country or Region, Language, and in Administrative Language Settings, the language for non-Unicode programs, and see if that might work for you.

Hi @andybev,

 

Currently, FME handles attribute names with systems default encoding and doesn't have the same encoding application as the data values, which is why the values are displaying correctly but the header row is not. Our team is working hard on extending that functionality for the future (in either a future 2019 release or 2020) so that the attribute names will be handled correctly. The issue is FMEENGINE-56578. Thanks everyone for raising the issue and for your patience.

 

In the meantime, a potential workaround is to set your systems encoding on your computer to the desired encoding. You can find that your Region and Language settings on Windows, and you can set the Country or Region, Language, and in Administrative Language Settings, the language for non-Unicode programs, and see if that might work for you.

Thanks for the answer. The work-around is a bit of a red herring though, as the language I want for non-unicode programs is... unicode. But its not an option. I guess I could set it to Greek but then everything else would be wrong. Thanks anyway.

I have the same problem with excel column headers with greek characters not being read correctly when using an excel reader. I have submitted a case with a sample file to support@safe.

Strangely this is now working fine. I didn't do anything except view the language settings.

Badge +11

Strangely this is now working fine. I didn't do anything except view the language settings.

That is strange, but glad to hear it! We're aiming to make this better in the future!

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