Unicode characters '≥' and '≤' are getting replaced by '='

leonsamson · January 18, 2021, 3:17pm

Hi everyone,

I am not sure if this is the best place for this, but I really hope someone can help me in the right direction to solve this. I have a problem with the display of unicode characters '≥' and '≤' in the output: R changes these characters to a '=' sign. I happens under windows but not under linux.

I came across this problem after reading an excel file with readxl::readr(), but the following minimal reproducible example gives the same error:

a <- data.frame(x= "≥",y="≤")
a

Output:
x y
= =

Expected output:
x y
≥ ≤

Session info:
R version 4.0.2 (2020-06-22) (EDIT: same happens after updating to R 4.0.3)
Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
Rstudio version 1.4.1087
LC_COLLATE=English_United Kingdom.1252

Same happens on a different computer with the same R version (4.0.2) but with a different locale:
LC_COLLATE=Dutch_Netherlands.1252

But it does not happen on a Linux server with an older R version:
R version 3.6.0 (2019-04-26)
Platform: x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8

In the last Linux environment I get the expected result, but I also need it to work on my personal computer.
Is this because of the R version? Or because the locale is not set properly? Or it just does not work under windows? Any help is appreciated!

leonsamson · January 18, 2021, 3:59pm

Some follow-up information: when using a tibble instead of a data frame, printing the tibble works as expected when I use the unicode name:

minimal.example.data <- tidyr::tribble(
  ~var1, ~var2,
  "\U2265", "\U2264"
)
minimal.example.data

Correct output:
A tibble: 1 x 2

var1	var2
≥	≤

However, as soon as I convert this to a kable for more table displaying options, it converts the signs to an 'equal to' sign again:

knitr::kable(minimal.example.data)

output:

var1	var2
=	=

StatSteph · January 18, 2021, 5:44pm

I can't reproduce this.

library(tidyverse)

minimal.example.data <- tidyr::tribble(
  ~var1, ~var2,
  "\U2265", "\U2264"
)
minimal.example.data 
#> # A tibble: 1 x 2
#>   var1  var2 
#>   <chr> <chr>
#> 1 ≥     ≤

knitr::kable(minimal.example.data)

var1	var2
≥	≤

^{Created on 2021-01-18 by the reprex package (v0.3.0)}

Session info

devtools::session_info()
#> ─ Session info ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#>  setting  value                       
#>  version  R version 4.0.3 (2020-10-10)
#>  os       macOS High Sierra 10.13.6   
#>  system   x86_64, darwin17.0          
#>  ui       X11                         
#>  language (EN)                        
#>  collate  en_US.UTF-8                 
#>  ctype    en_US.UTF-8                 
#>  tz       America/New_York            
#>  date     2021-01-18                  
#> 
#> ─ Packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
#>  package     * version date       lib source        
#>  assertthat    0.2.1   2019-03-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  backports     1.1.7   2020-05-13 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  blob          1.2.1   2020-01-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  broom         0.7.0   2020-07-09 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  callr         3.4.3   2020-03-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  cellranger    1.1.0   2016-07-27 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  cli           2.0.2   2020-02-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  colorspace    1.4-1   2019-03-18 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  crayon        1.3.4   2017-09-16 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  DBI           1.1.0   2019-12-15 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  dbplyr        1.4.4   2020-05-27 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  desc          1.2.0   2018-05-01 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  devtools      2.3.1   2020-07-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  digest        0.6.25  2020-02-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  dplyr       * 1.0.0   2020-05-29 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  ellipsis      0.3.1   2020-05-15 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  evaluate      0.14    2019-05-28 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
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#>  haven         2.3.1   2020-06-01 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  highr         0.8     2019-03-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  hms           0.5.3   2020-01-08 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  htmltools     0.4.0   2019-10-04 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  httr          1.4.2   2020-07-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  jsonlite      1.7.0   2020-06-25 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  knitr         1.29    2020-06-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  lifecycle     0.2.0   2020-03-06 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  lubridate     1.7.9   2020-06-08 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  magrittr      1.5     2014-11-22 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  memoise       1.1.0   2017-04-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  modelr        0.1.8   2020-05-19 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  munsell       0.5.0   2018-06-12 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  pillar        1.4.6   2020-07-10 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  pkgbuild      1.0.8   2020-05-07 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  pkgconfig     2.0.3   2019-09-22 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  pkgload       1.0.2   2018-10-29 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  prettyunits   1.1.1   2020-01-24 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  processx      3.4.2   2020-02-09 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  ps            1.3.3   2020-05-08 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  purrr       * 0.3.4   2020-04-17 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  R6            2.4.1   2019-11-12 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  Rcpp          1.0.5   2020-07-06 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  readr       * 1.3.1   2018-12-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  readxl        1.3.1   2019-03-13 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  remotes       2.2.0   2020-07-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  reprex        0.3.0   2019-05-16 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  rlang         0.4.7   2020-07-09 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  rmarkdown     2.1     2020-01-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  rprojroot     1.3-2   2018-01-03 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  rvest         0.3.5   2019-11-08 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  scales        1.1.1   2020-05-11 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  sessioninfo   1.1.1   2018-11-05 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  stringi       1.4.6   2020-02-17 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  stringr     * 1.4.0   2019-02-10 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  testthat      2.3.2   2020-03-02 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  tibble      * 3.0.3   2020-07-10 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  tidyr       * 1.1.0   2020-05-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  tidyselect    1.1.0   2020-05-11 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  tidyverse   * 1.3.0   2019-11-21 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  usethis       1.6.1   2020-04-29 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  utf8          1.1.4   2018-05-24 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  vctrs         0.3.2   2020-07-15 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  withr         2.2.0   2020-04-20 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  xfun          0.16    2020-07-24 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.2)
#>  xml2          1.3.2   2020-04-23 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#>  yaml          2.2.1   2020-02-01 [1] CRAN (R 4.0.0)
#> 
#> [1] /Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Versions/4.0/Resources/library

leonsamson · January 18, 2021, 5:57pm

Thanks for trying this out and replying. I am wondering if it is operating system dependent and only occurs in windows; I saw you are using macOS, with a different locale (en_US.UTF-8).

FJCC · January 18, 2021, 6:36pm

I do see this on Windows 10, R 4.0.2. US locale, by the way.

> minimal.example.data <- tidyr::tribble(
+   ~var1, ~var2,
+   "\U2265", "\U2264"
+ )
> View(minimal.example.data)
> knitr::kable(minimal.example.data)


|var1 |var2 |
|:----|:----|
|=    |=    |

leonsamson · January 18, 2021, 10:32pm

Thanks for trying. So it might be a Windows problem. It also occurs in plane R (outside Rstudio). My Rstudio is standard set to UTF-8 (if it matters; I checked it).

I just came across another question with this similar problem, but no solution posted, from 2019:

My goal is to print this greater than or equal sign in a knitr::kable() table , using R/Rstudio my own windows computer; I need it to work with HTML and pdf output.

I hope someone can help with a solution!

leonsamson · January 27, 2021, 12:09pm

For future reference: I started a topic on Stackoverflow, also showing some workarounds for specific cases that work for my data (although the workaround are a bit inconvenient).

I think that until UTF-8 in R under windows is fully supported (see here), there are no general solutions under windows. I'd be happy if someone proves me wrong on this though.

system · February 17, 2021, 12:09pm

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