Joseph Rézeau

Jonathan:

to prevent this problem from reocurring, can't there be a line of code in the setup that checks for utf8?  If It's not utf8, the install fails, no matter what.

Well, that feature is provided by the moodle 2.0 install script. If you try to install moodle 2.0 with a database whose collation is not set to utf8 (e.g. latin1_swedish_ci, etc.), then the install script does stop with the following warnings:

Moodle 2.0.2+ (Build: 20110413)
Server checks
Name     Information     Report     Status
unicode         must be installed and enabled
It is required that you store all your data in Unicode format (UTF-8). New installations must be performed into databases that have their default character set as Unicode. If you are upgrading, you should perform the UTF-8 migration process (see the Admin page).
[...]
You must solve all the environmental problems (errors) found above before proceeding to install this Moodle version!

And you cannot proceed with the installation. Just like you requested.

The problem in your case seems to be that you did not install moodle yourself but you rely on the "simplescripts" organisation (of whom I do not know). Again, you should take your problem to them, not to moodle.org, and ask them a) why they set your moodle database to latin1_swedish_ci rather than to uf8_general_ci and b) how they could have "installed" a moodle 2.0 version with that database collation, since it is not possible to do so.

Hope that helps.

Joseph

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"... is there a simple way to switch it all to utf8? Seems like this is a problem from simplescripts..."

There might be a way, but I am no specialist of databases. Please submit the problem to the "simplescripts" people. They should be able to help.

I'm glad the problem has been diagnosed at last and you know how to cure it. Many thanks to Yvette Martinez for putting us on the right track.

Joseph

Here is the (missing) screenshot!

Hi Jonathan,

1.- Could you please try the experiment I suggested in my post dated Monday, 18 April 2011, 11:43 PM:

Try creating a simple "Page" (from the Add a resource menu) in your moodle course, and paste that Wikipedia chunk of text and see what happens.

You might also try to paste that Wikipedia text (or at least the last paragraph which features the utf8  _ signs) into some other activities or resources on your Moodle site (e.g. a quiz question, a glossary entry, etc.). If all goes well, then we can confirm that the problem is restricted to your Lesson module.

2.- Unfortunately the screenshot of "utf8_general_ci" column you posted does not show the table names column. Could you please post a screenshot similar to the one attached to this post?

3.- What kind of database do you have on your moodle site (mysql, postgres, etc.)?

Thanks in advance,

Joseph

Hi stephen,

Wrong forum (again !).

1.- The regexp question plugin is meant to be used to create questions in the quiz questions databank, not for the Lesson module.  You should have posted your question to the Quiz module forum. However, for faster support you may email me directly (to my email address in my moodle profile).

2.- A complete documentation is available for the REGEXP question type. I'm surprised that you would find the "standard documentation" inadequate.

3.- Be aware that there is also a "regular expression" option for the shortanswer question type in the Lesson module, but that is in the Moodle core itself, not a 3rd-party plugin like the REGEXP question type. Maybe that is the reason for your confusion.

Joseph (author of the REGEXP question type)