Rails: Invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII (Argument Error) when I run rake db:seed

Question

When I run rake db:seed in my Rails app, I'm getting this error:

invalid byte sequence in US-ASCII (Argument Error)

I just added science_majors and down to my seed file, and now when I run rake db:seed it gives me this error:

invalid byte sequence error

Why is this, and how can I fix it?

part of seeds.rb

@college = College.find_or_create_by_name!('University of Pittsburgh')
if @college.update_attributes(
  url: 'university-of-pittsburgh',
  public: 'Public',
  years: '4-year',
  category: 'National University',
  calendar: 'Semester',
  location: 'Pittsburgh, PA',
  setting: 'Large City (250-500k)',
  retention: '90',
  majors: 'business/marketing: 15%|social sciences: 14%|health professions: 11%|english: 10%|engineering: 9%|psychology: 8%|biology: 7%|history: 5%',
  scholarships_link: 'http://www.oafa.pitt.edu/universityschlrs.aspx',
  map: '<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=s_q&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=university+of+pittsburgh&amp;aq=&amp;sll=40.444261,-79.970448&amp;sspn=0.142165,0.251656&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=university+of+pittsburgh&amp;t=m&amp;ll=40.443486,-79.958245&amp;spn=0.010798,0.021038&amp;output=embed"></iframe><br /><small><a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=embed&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=university+of+pittsburgh&amp;aq=&amp;sll=40.431368,-79.9805&amp;sspn=0.142165,0.251656&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=university+of+pittsburgh&amp;t=m&amp;ll=40.443486,-79.958245&amp;spn=0.010798,0.021038" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>',
  street_view: '<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=embed&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=University+of+Pittsburgh,+4200+Fifth+Ave,+Pittsburgh,+PA&amp;aq=0&amp;oq=uni&amp;sll=40.444261,-79.970448&amp;sspn=0.142165,0.251656&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=University+of+Pittsburgh,+4200+Fifth+Ave,+Pittsburgh,+PA&amp;ll=40.443486,-79.958245&amp;spn=0.010798,0.021038&amp;t=m&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=40.441775,-79.956671&amp;panoid=BgWQKMiSI1fpwP7JUF16Vg&amp;cbp=12,45.25,,0,-3.34&amp;output=svembed"></iframe><br /><small><a href="https://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&amp;source=embed&amp;hl=en&amp;geocode=&amp;q=University+of+Pittsburgh,+4200+Fifth+Ave,+Pittsburgh,+PA&amp;aq=0&amp;oq=uni&amp;sll=40.431368,-79.9805&amp;sspn=0.142165,0.251656&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;hq=University+of+Pittsburgh,+4200+Fifth+Ave,+Pittsburgh,+PA&amp;ll=40.443486,-79.958245&amp;spn=0.010798,0.021038&amp;t=m&amp;layer=c&amp;cbll=40.441775,-79.956671&amp;panoid=BgWQKMiSI1fpwP7JUF16Vg&amp;cbp=12,45.25,,0,-3.34" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>',
  housing: '<iframe src="http://www.tour.pitt.edu/tour-categories/residence-halls" scrolling="no" height="820" width="900"></iframe>',
  food: '<div style="overflow: hidden; max-width: 1000px;"><iframe scrolling="no" src="http://www.pc.pitt.edu/dining/menus.php" style="margin-left: 0; height: 2000px; margin-top: -370px; margin-bottom: -375px; width: 750px;"></iframe></div>',
  weather: '<div style="overflow: hidden; max-width: 500px;"><iframe scrolling="no" src="http://www.weather.com/weather/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/USPA1290" style="margin-left: -40px; height: 1570px; margin-top: -490px; width: 500px;"></iframe></div>',
  dorms: 'Towers (fr.)|Sutherland (fr.)|Lothrop (fr.)|Nordenberg (fr.)|Holland (fr.)|Forbes (fr.; honors)|McCormick|Brackenridge|Amos|Bruce|Panther|Pennsylvania|Ruskin|Bouquet Gardens|Oakwood Apartments|Centre-Plaza Apartments|Forbes-Craig Apartments (honors)',
  science_majors: 'Actuarial Mathematics|Applied Mathematics|Bioinformatics|Biological Sciences|Chemistry*|Computer Science|Ecology and Evolution|Environmental Geology|Environmental Studies|Geology|History and Philosophy of Science|Linguistics*|Mathematics*|Mathematics-Economics|Mathematics-Philosophy|Microbiology|Molecular Biology|Natural Sciences Area|Neuroscience*|Physics*|Physics and Astronomy|Scientific Computing|Statistics',
  social_science_majors: 'Economics*|Economics–Statistics|History*|Political Science*|Politics-Philosophy|Psychology|Sociology*|Urban Studies',
  humanities_majors: 'Africana Studies*|Africana Studies–English|Anthropology|Chinese*|Classics*|English Literature*|English Writing|Film Studies*|French*|German|History of Art & Architecture|Humanities Area|Italian*|Italian Studies|Japanese*|Liberal Studies|Music*|Philosophy*|Religious Studies*|Russian|Slavic Studies|Spanish|Studio Arts*|Theatre Arts*',
  business_majors: 'Accounting|Finance|General Management|Global Management|Marketing',
  engineering_majors: 'Bioengineering*|Chemical Engineering*|Civil Engineering*|Computer Engineering|Electrical Engineering*|Engineering Physics|Industrial Engineering*|Materials Science and Engineering*|Mechanical Engineering*',
  professional_majors: 'Administration of Justice*|Applied Developmental Psychology|Architectural Studies|Athletic Training|Clinical Dietetics and Nutrition|Communication: Rhet & Comm|Communication Science|Dental Hygiene|Emergency Medicine|Health Information Management|Health Services|Health and Physical Activity|Information Science|Legal Studies*|Media and Professional Communications|Nursing|Pharmacy|Public Service*|Rehabilitation Science|Social Work*'
)
else
  # handle validation errors
end

@college= College.find_or_create_by_name!('Harvard')
if @college.update_attributes(
  url: 'harvard',
  public: 'Private',
  years: '4-year',
  category: 'National University',
  calendar: 'Semester',
  location: 'Cambridge, MA',
  setting: 'Small City (50-250k)',
  degrees: 'Bachelors, Masters, Doctoral',
  rotc: 'Air Force, Army, Navy',
  considered: 'Academic GPA|Alumni Relation|Application Essay|Character/Personal Qualities|Extracurricular Activities|First Generation College Student|Geographical Residence|Interview|Racial/Ethnic Status|Recommendations|Rigor of secondary school record|Standardized Test Scores|Talent/Ability|Volunteer Work|Work Experience',
  student_faculty: '7 to 1')
else
  # handle validation errors
end

I left out all the other colleges. I have 200 schools so far, but Pitt is the only one with comprehensive data so far. The rest just have basic data, like Harvard. I also left out some of the data for Pitt for the sake of brevity, but let me know if you'd like me to include the rest.

Edit: I tried taking out the *'s in science_majors on down and then running rake db:seed, but that didn't change anything.

Answer 1

You're receiving an encoding error because your filesystem isn't configured to encode the date you've added (since presumably it includes new characters – possibly in your HTML entity encoded map URL – that didn't exist in your prior data seed).

The following will should resolve this error by setting the UTF-8 locale on your machine:

# from your command line
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
export LANGUAGE=en_US.UTF-8
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
bundle

The benefit of setting a system locale is that all gems (going forward) will be bundled using UTF-8 encoding.

EDIT:

Alternatively, if you don't want to change your system encoding, you can set your encoding project-wide by specifying an encoding standard in your Gemfile:

if RUBY_VERSION =~ /1.9/ # assuming you're running Ruby ~1.9
  Encoding.default_external = Encoding::UTF_8
  Encoding.default_internal = Encoding::UTF_8
end