Solution Found: Changing default character set.

Vincent — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:38:01 -0500

Hey all,

I found a solution to a problem I have been struggling with. I can't find any solutions here either. So I hope by posting my solution, it can be of some help to others in the future.

FYI, I have spoken to Matlab engineers about this. No solutions from them. This is an opportunistic find on my part.

Background and problem::

1. Matlab 2008a or 2008b.

2. Installed on Linux 64bit machine.

3. Problem similar to http://www.mathworks.com/support/solutions/data/1-249V2X.html?solution=1-249V2X

4. Accented characters appear as empty boxes in command window. For example, char(224) returns as an empty box instead of ?

5. All accented characters retrieved from DB will be interpreted as char(26) and shown as empty boxes.

The Solution:

1. Fire up a fresh Matlab session.

2. Type feature('DefaultCharacterSet','UTF8').

3. Follow up with feature('DefaultCharacterSet'). This should return UTF-8 in the command window.

4. Check accented characters with char() command.

5. Add lines in 2 and 3 into your startup.m.

6. Now Matlab will start up into UTF-8 under Linux 64bit every time.

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MATLAB Central Newsreader - Solution Found: Changing default character set.

Solution Found: Changing default character set.