Facebook Graph API post displaying some message characters incorrectly - facebook-graph-api

Question

I'm attempting to post a message to a users wall using the facebook graph api.
https://graph.facebook.com/me/feed
Charchters like å, ä or ö would display incorrectly with symbols like ���...
I used apacheCommons StringEscapeUtils.encodeHtml around all the relevent parameters sent in the request (message, name, description).
def params = [
accessToken: getFacebookAccessToken(),
message: StringEscapeUtils.escapeHtml(deal.title),
pictureUrl: imageUrl,
name: StringEscapeUtils.escapeHtml(deal.title),
description: StringEscapeUtils.escapeHtml(deal.shortDescription),
actionLabel: StringEscapeUtils.escapeHtml(actionLabel),
actionUrl: actionUrl
]
def graph(path, params, method = GET, contentType = JSON) {
def http = null
http = new TrustAllHttpBuilder(ConfigurationHolder.config.facebook.graph.uri)
http.request( method, contentType) { req ->
uri.path = path
req.getParams().setParameter(ClientPNames.COOKIE_POLICY, CookiePolicy.IGNORE_COOKIES );
req.getParams().setParameter(CoreConnectionPNames.CONNECTION_TIMEOUT, connectionTimeout );
req.getParams().setParameter(CoreConnectionPNames.SO_TIMEOUT, socketTimeout );
requestContentType = URLENC
body = params
response.success = { resp, obj ->
return obj
}
}
}
The "Name" and "Description" display correctly in facebook after this change but the "Message" still does not render correctly.
Any ideas why the "Message" is not displaying correcltly?
Does FB handle it differently?
Thanks
Update
I adjusted the params to be URLEncoded to UTF-8 before sending in the body of JSON request.
def params = [
accessToken: getFacebookAccessToken(),
message: URLEncoder.encode(deal.title,"UTF-8"),
pictureUrl: imageUrl,
name: URLEncoder.encode(deal.title,"UTF-8"),
description: URLEncoder.encode(deal.shortDescription,"UTF-8"),
actionLabel: URLEncoder.encode(actionLabel,"UTF-8"),
actionUrl: actionUrl
]
The Request:
14:49:13 DEBUG [FacebookService] body: Message: Tommy+%C3%80%C3%84%C4%87%C3%95,Name: Tommy+%C3%80%C3%84%C4%87%C3%95,Description: %C3%80%C3%84%C4%87%C3%95%C3%80%C3%84%C4%87%C3%95,Caption: ,Action Label: TEST,ActionUrl: http://www.mytest.com
14:49:51 DEBUG [FacebookService] Calling facebook graph API https://graph.facebook.com/me/feed
14:49:51 DEBUG [TrustAllHttpBuilder] POST https://graph.facebook.com/me/feed
14:49:52 DEBUG [headers] >> POST /me/feed HTTP/1.1
14:49:52 DEBUG [headers] >> Accept: application/json, application/javascript, text/javascript
14:49:52 DEBUG [headers] >> Content-Length: 475
14:49:52 DEBUG [headers] >> Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=windows-1252
14:49:52 DEBUG [headers] >> Host: graph.facebook.com
14:49:52 DEBUG [headers] >> Connection: Keep-Alive
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << HTTP/1.1 200 OK
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << Cache-Control: private, no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << Content-Type: application/json
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << Expires: Sat, 01 Jan 2000 00:00:00 GMT
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << Pragma: no-cache
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << X-FB-Rev:
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << X-FB-Debug:
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << Date: Fri, 05 Oct 2012 13:49:52 GMT
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << Connection: keep-alive
14:49:53 DEBUG [headers] << Content-Length: 40
The Result in FB (Not working):

Answer 1

escapeHtml is the wrong method for that – you see how your message is now showing HTML Entities. You do not want to post HTML code, you want to post plain text.
Charchters like å, ä or ö would display incorrectly with symbols like ���...
That’s most likely because your application is using the wrong character encoding.
Make sure to use UTF-8. (Or convert your parameter values to UTF-8 before passing them to the API, should the former not be possible.)
Edit:
I tried converting the params to UTF-8 before
14:49:13 DEBUG [FacebookService] body: Message: Tommy+%C3%80%C3%84%C4%87%C3%95,Name: …
These are URL-encoded UTF-8 characters. URL-encoding is contra-productive here.
14:49:52 DEBUG [headers] >> Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded; charset=windows-1252
Thou shalt not Lie into the API’s Face so blatantly :-)
Seriously, find out what brings your app to send that charset in the request header – and see how you get that changed to UTF-8 as well (or to leave the charset part out completely).

Answer 2

It turns out theEncoderRegistry class already
has a charset field that it uses for the request data. It defaults to
the platform encoding. You can set it to UTF-8 as follows:
def graph(path, params, method = GET, contentType = JSON) {
def http = null
http = new TrustAllHttpBuilder(ConfigurationHolder.config.facebook.graph.uri)
http.encoderRegistry = new EncoderRegistry( charset: 'utf-8' )
http.request( method, contentType) { req ->
uri.path = path
req.getParams().setParameter(ClientPNames.COOKIE_POLICY, CookiePolicy.IGNORE_COOKIES );
req.getParams().setParameter(CoreConnectionPNames.CONNECTION_TIMEOUT, connectionTimeout );
req.getParams().setParameter(CoreConnectionPNames.SO_TIMEOUT, socketTimeout );
requestContentType = URLENC
body = params
response.success = { resp, obj ->
return obj
}
}
}
Answer reference