A couple of Ruby functions for transliterating file names or URLs.

gistfile1.rb

# Remove whitespace and special characters and replace with dashes (-).
def self.filename(input)
  input.split(%r{ |!|/|:|&|-|$|,|\?|%|\(|\)}).map { |i| i.downcase if i != '' }.compact.join('-')
end

# Convert to ascii and replace non-ascii letters.
def self.transliterate(input)
  replacements = {
    'å' => 'a',
    'ä' => 'a',
    'â' => 'a',
    'á' => 'a',
    'à' => 'a',
    'ç' => 'c',
    'é' => 'e',
    'è' => 'e',
    'ê' => 'e',
    'ë' => 'e',
    'ï' => 'i',
    'í' => 'i',
    'ì' => 'i',
    'ö' => 'o',
    'ó' => 'o',
    'ò' => 'o',
    'ô' => 'o',
    'ü' => 'u',
    'æ' => 'ae',
    'œ' => 'oe',
    'ß' => 'ss',
  }
  input.encode Encoding::ASCII, :fallback => replacements
end