demimismo

  # I use this method to parse large csv files, clean the data and insert
  # it in a database after some cleaning, it's pretty fast

    # you can use it like this:

    load_csv_data(PRELOAD_DIR+'socios.csv', 'users') do |csv, thing_id, row|
      csv << [thing_id,
        row['NOMBRE'].to_s.to_permalink+'.'+row['APELLIDOS'].to_s.to_permalink, #  login
        row['E_MAIL'], #  email
        row['SEXO'],  #  gender

demimismo

# convert multibyte strings to an url-safe encoding 
class String
  def to_permalink
      (Iconv.new('US-ASCII//TRANSLIT', 'utf-8').iconv self).gsub(/[^\w\s\-\—]/,'').gsub(/[^\w]|[\_]/,' ').split.join('-').downcase
  end
end