convert jruby 1.8 string to windows encoding?

I want to export some data from my jruby on rails webapp to excel, so I create a csv string and send it as a download to the client using

send_data(text, :filename => "file.csv", :type => "text/csv; charset=CP1252", :encoding => "CP1252")

The file seems to be in UTF-8 which Excel cannot read correctly. I googled the problem and found that iconv can convert encodings. I try to do that with:

ic = Iconv.new('CP1252', 'UTF-8')
text = ic.iconv(text)

but when I send the converted text it does not make any difference. It is still UTF-8 and Excel cannot read the special characters. there are several solutions using iconv, so this seems to work for others. When I convert the file on the linux shell manually with iconv it works.

What am I doing wrong? Is there a better way?

Im using: - jruby 1.3.1 (ruby 1.8.6p287) (2009-06-15 2fd6c3d) (Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM 1.6.0_19) [i386-java] - Debian Lenny - Glassfish app server - Iceweasel 3.0.6

Edit: Do I have 开发者_运维知识库to include some gem to use iconv?

Solution: S.Mark pointed out this solution: You have to use UTF-16LE encoding to make excel understand it, like this:

text= Iconv.iconv('UTF-16LE', 'UTF-8', text)

Thanks, S.Mark for that answer.

According to my experience, Excel cannot handle UTF-8 CSV files properly. Try UTF-16 instead.

Note: Excel's Import Text Wizard appears to work with UTF-8 too

Edit: A Search on Stack Overflow give me this page, please take a look that.

According to that, adding a BOM (Byte Order Mark) signature in CSV will popup Excel Text Import Wizard, so you could use it as work around.

Do you get the same result with the following?

cp1252= Iconv.conv("CP1252", "UTF8", text)