utf-8 display issue in rendering functions

[jiayi9]

Saving all files in UTF-8 encoding does make all UTF-8 characters in the ui.R display properly. But the characters in all rendering functions still don't get displayed correctly.

library(shiny)

server <- function(input, session, output) {
  output$UTF8_text = renderText({
    "中文"
  })
}

ui <- fluidPage(
  p("中文"),
  textOutput("UTF8_text")
)

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

The two Chinese characters 中 is displayed as <U+4E2D> and 文 is displayed as <U+6587>.
Please see below.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/43485436/r-shiny-display-utf-8-characters-in-render-functions

[wch]

I'm able to reproduce this problem in Windows when I save that to a file (as UTF-8) and then call runApp() on it. I wonder if it's an issue with how jsonlite is converting it.

[wch]

The problem is in renderText: it calls capture.output(cat(value)), and that seems to not work correctly with these characters in Windows.

> cat("中文")
中文
> utils::capture.output(cat("中文"))
[1] "<U+4E2D><U+6587>"

This is the code in question:
https://github.com/rstudio/shiny/blob/f8f2acf/R/shinywrappers.R#L318

[wch]

@jiayi9 One workaround is to use renderUI, which doesn't have this problem:

library(shiny)

server <- function(input, session, output) {
  output$UTF8_text = renderUI({
    "中文"
  })
}

ui <- fluidPage(
  p("中文"),
  uiOutput("UTF8_text")
)

shinyApp(ui = ui, server = server)

[jiayi9]

Yes, using renderUI instead does solve this issue.

[wch]

I'm reopening this because it is a bug that should be addressed.

[marton-balazs-kovacs]

Could you find a solution to this issue? I am using renderText with htmlOutput and it is still not working properly for me.

[pitakakariki]

Hi, I just ran into this trying to get macrons to work properly in Māori. Thanks for the renderUI/outputUI workaround, worked for me. Hopefully Windows 11 supports Unicode so we don't have to worry about stuff like this anymore :)