Script with utf-8 text runs differently from RStudio and command line in Windows

Question

I\'m working with files containing text in Hindi and parsing them. I wrote my code in Rstudio and executed it without many issues. But now, I need to execute the same script

Answer 1

The right answer is that you should run Rscript with the option --encoding=file encoding

There is no need to set locale, and as you probably found out, it doesn't work anyway. If your file is UTF-8: Rscript.exe --encoding=UTF-8 file.R

Answer 2

You need to ensure that R is running in a suitable locale:

Running rterm use: Sys.getlocale() to find your current locale.

You can set your locale using:

Sys.setlocale(category = "LC_ALL", locale = "hi-IN")

# Try "hi-IN.UTF-8" too...

You can find locale names here, the MSDN, and here.

If you have the correct value, put the Sys.setlocale() command in your ~/.Rprofile.

References

• https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rw-FAQ.html
• http://withr.me/configure-character-encoding-for-r-under-linux-and-windows/