CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#text-filesspecial-characters
Joshua
Joshua

Reputation: 138

How to encode for special character?

I am having an issue with my file output. I need to write to a file the character ý and þ. I can do this using Convert.ToChar(0253) & Convert.ToChar(0254). This is an old program that I have rewritten in C# from basic+. The old program created a simple text file that if opened in wordpad would render the special characters ý & þ. However, when I create the file and open it in wordpad it renders the characters as ý and þ. Below is the output file opened in both notepad and wordpad. How can I output the characters so that they will render as ý and þ in both notepad and wordpad? I have also inserted my code below. Thanks in advance.

This renders fine in notepad like so:

3/31/2015ý15þ
14182515þ
ENDþ

However, when opening the file in wordpad it renders like this:

3/31/2015ý15þ
14182515þ
ENDþ


textOut.WriteLine(shortDate + Convert.ToChar(0253) + cRenPer + Convert.ToChar(0254));

Upvotes: 0

Views: 910

Answers (4)

Joshua
Joshua

Reputation: 138

So, as Thorsten Dittmar had suggested I needed to encode the stream-writer as utf8. This allowed the file to be read by the preexisting application as it should be. Below is the change to the stream-writer class.

 StreamWriter textOut = new StreamWriter((dirPath + batchNum + ".REN"), false, new UTF8Encoding(true));

This is an edit: I ended up modifying the code. Although the text file ended up being interpreted correctly in word-pad it was still not being read by the legacy application. My modified code is below:

 StreamWriter textOut = new StreamWriter(new FileStream((dirPath + batchNum + ".REN"),
                                    FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write),
                                    System.Text.UnicodeEncoding.Default);

Upvotes: 1

Thorsten Dittmar
Thorsten Dittmar

Reputation: 56697

You should specify either UTF8 or UTF16 encoding when writing the file. You can do it like this:

StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(<file path>, false, Encoding.UTF8);

Upvotes: 2

Sayse
Sayse

Reputation: 43300

You can set the encoding when you define the streamreader

StreamWriter textOut = new StreamWriter(new FileStream((dirPath + batchNum + ".REN"),
                                        FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write),
                                        Encoding.UTF8);

MSDN for this constructor

Upvotes: 1

Alex
Alex

Reputation: 758

You could write to file using the following code , note the 2nd encoding parameter. This will effect how the file is encoded , which in turn will effect how will ite will be treated by various text editors.

string fileName = "myFile.txt";
using (TextWriter textOut = new StreamWriter(File.OpenWrite(fileName),System.Text.Encoding.Unicode))
{
         textOut.WriteLine(Convert.ToChar(0254));
}

Upvotes: 0

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