How do decode b"\x95\xc3\x8a\xb0\x8ds\x86\x89\x94\x82\x8a\xba"?

Question

[Summary]: The data grabbed from the file is

b"\x95\xc3\x8a\xb0\x8ds\x86\x89\x94\x82\x8a\xba"

How to decode these bytes into readable Chinese characters please?

======

I extracted some game scripts from an exe file. The file is packed with Enigma Virtual Box and I unpacked it.

Then I'm able to see the scripts' names just right, in English, as it supposed to be.

In analyzing these scripts, I get an error looks like this:

UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x95 in position 0: invalid start byte

I changed the decoding to GBK, and the error disappeared.

But the output file is not readable. It includes readable English characters and non-readable content which supposed to be in Chinese. Example:

chT0002>pDIӘIʆ

I tried different encodings for saving the file and they show the same result, so the problem might be on the decoding part.

The data grabbed from the file is

b"\x95\xc3\x8a\xb0\x8ds\x86\x89\x94\x82\x8a\xba"

I tried many ways but I just can't decode these bytes into readable Chinese characters. Is there anything wrong with the file itself? Or somewhere else? I really need help, please.

One of the scripts are attached here.

Answer 1

In order to reliably decode bytes, you must know how the bytes were encoded. I will borrow the quote from the python codecs docs:

Without external information it’s impossible to reliably determine which encoding was used for encoding a string.

Without this information, there are ways to try and detect the encoding (chardet seems to be the most widely-used). Here's how you could approach that.

import chardet

data = b"\x95\xc3\x8a\xb0\x8ds\x86\x89\x94\x82\x8a\xba"
detected = chardet.detect(data)
decoded = data.decode(detected["encoding"])

The above example, however, does not work in this case because chardet isn't able to detect the encoding of these bytes. At that point, you'll have to either use trial-and-error or try other libraries.

One method you could use is to simply try every standard encoding, print out the result, and see which encoding makes sense.

codecs = [
    "ascii", "big5", "big5hkscs", "cp037", "cp273", "cp424", "cp437", "cp500", "cp720", 
    "cp737", "cp775", "cp850", "cp852", "cp855", "cp856", "cp857", "cp858", "cp860",
    "cp861", "cp862", "cp863", "cp864", "cp865", "cp866", "cp869", "cp874", "cp875",
    "cp932", "cp949", "cp950", "cp1006", "cp1026", "cp1125", "cp1140", "cp1250",
    "cp1251", "cp1252", "cp1253", "cp1254", "cp1255", "cp1256", "cp1257",
    "cp1258", "cp65001", "euc_jp", "euc_jis_2004", "euc_jisx0213", "euc_kr", "gb2312",
    "gbk", "gb18030", "hz", "iso2022_jp", "iso2022_jp_1", "iso2022_jp_2",
    "iso2022_jp_2004", "iso2022_jp_3", "iso2022_jp_ext", "iso2022_kr", "latin_1",
    "iso8859_2", "iso8859_3", "iso8859_4", "iso8859_5", "iso8859_6", "iso8859_7",
    "iso8859_8", "iso8859_9", "iso8859_10", "iso8859_11", "iso8859_13", "iso8859_14",
    "iso8859_15", "iso8859_16", "johab", "koi8_r", "koi8_t", "koi8_u", "kz1048",
    "mac_cyrillic", "mac_greek", "mac_iceland", "mac_latin2", "mac_roman",
    "mac_turkish", "ptcp154", "shift_jis", "shift_jis_2004", "shift_jisx0213",
    "utf_32", "utf_32_be", "utf_32_le", "utf_16", "utf_16_be", "utf_16_le", "utf_7",
    "utf_8", "utf_8_sig",
]

data = b"\x95\xc3\x8a\xb0\x8ds\x86\x89\x94\x82\x8a\xba"

for codec in codecs:
    try:
        print(f"{codec}, {data.decode(codec)}")
    except UnicodeDecodeError:
        continue

Output

cp037, nC«^ýËfimb«[
cp273, nC«¢ýËfimb«¬
cp437, ò├è░ìsåëöéè║
cp500, nC«¢ýËfimb«¬
cp720, ـ├è░së¤éè║
cp737, Χ├Λ░ΞsΗΚΦΓΛ║
cp775, Ģ├Ŗ░ŹsåēöéŖ║
cp850, ò├è░ìsåëöéè║
cp852, Ľ├Ő░ŹsćëöéŐ║
cp855, Ћ├і░ЇsєЅћѓі║
cp856, ץ├ך░םsזיפגך║
cp857, ò├è░ısåëöéè║
cp858, ò├è░ìsåëöéè║
cp860, ò├è░ìsÁÊõéè║
cp861, þ├è░Þsåëöéè║
cp862, ץ├ך░םsזיפגך║
cp863, Ï├è░‗s¶ëËéè║
cp864, ¼ﺃ├٠┌s│┬½∙├ﻑ
cp865, ò├è░ìsåëöéè║
cp866, Х├К░НsЖЙФВК║
cp875, nCα£δΉfimbας
cp949, 빩뒺뛱냹봻듆
cp1006, ﺣﺍsﭦ
cp1026, nC«¢`Ëfimb«¬
cp1125, Х├К░НsЖЙФВК║
cp1140, nC«^ýËfimb«[
cp1250, •ĂŠ°Ťs†‰”‚Šş
cp1251, •ГЉ°Ќs†‰”‚Љє
cp1256, •أٹ°چs†‰”‚ٹ؛
gbk, 暶姲峴唹攤姾
gb18030, 暶姲峴唹攤姾
latin_1, ðsº
iso8859_2, Ă°sş
iso8859_4, ðsē
iso8859_5, УАsК
iso8859_7, Γ°sΊ
iso8859_9, ðsº
iso8859_10, ðsš
iso8859_11, รฐsบ
iso8859_13, Ć°sŗ
iso8859_14, ÃḞsẃ
iso8859_15, ðsº
iso8859_16, Ă°sș
koi8_r, ∙ц┼╟█s├┴■┌┼╨
koi8_u, ∙ц┼╟█s├┴■┌┼╨
kz1048, •ГЉ°Қs†‰”‚Љғ
mac_cyrillic, Х√К∞НsЖЙФВКЇ
mac_greek, ïΟäΑçsÜâî²äΚ
mac_iceland, ï√ä∞çsÜâîÇä∫
mac_latin2, ē√äįćsÜČĒāäļ
mac_roman, ï√ä∞çsÜâîÇä∫
mac_turkish, ï√ä∞çsÜâîÇä∫
ptcp154, •ГҠ°ҚsҶү”ӮҠә
shift_jis_2004, 陛寛行̹狽桓
shift_jisx0213, 陛寛行̹狽桓
utf_16, 쎕낊玍覆芔몊
utf_16_be, 闃誰赳蚉钂誺
utf_16_le, 쎕낊玍覆芔몊

Edit: After running all of the seemingly legible results through Google Translate, I suspect this encoding is UTF-16 big-endian. Here's the results:

Encoding	Decoded	Language Detected	English Translation
gbk	暶姲峴唹攤姾	Chinese	Jian Xian JiaoTanJiao
gb18030	暶姲峴唹攤姾	Chinese	Jian Xian Jiao Tan Jiao
utf_16	쎕낊玍覆芔몊	Korean	None
utf_16_be	闃誰赳蚉钂誺	Chinese	Who is the epiphysis?
utf_16_le	쎕낊玍覆芔몊	Korean	None