Rails 3 UTF-8 query string showing up in URL?

Question

I have a search query form on my home page (/)

<% form_tag(search_path, :method => :get) do %>
  <%= text_field_tag 'query' %>
  <%= submit_tag "Search", :name => nil%>

<% end %>

When I submit this search form, I want to end up at (/search?query=foo). However, right now I get /search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=foo. What's that utf8 parameter doing there? How can I get rid of it?

Thanks.

Answer 1

The utf8 parameter (formerly known as snowman) is a Rails 3 workaround for an Internet Explorer bug.

The short answer is that Internet Explorer ignores POST data UTF8 encoding unless at least one UTF8 char is included in the POST data. For this reason, Rails injects an UTF8 character in the form to force IE to treat everything as UTF8 encoded.