how to convert UTF8 file into ANSI?

firepol

Hello there, I am dealing with files encoded in UTF8 and I can't find a way to convert them into ANSI.

I've already searched in google for this since a while, and I'm not achieving the result I want to achieve if I use the code I've found on the web, which is the following:

Example of test.txt (save it as UTF8): "éàèüöä"

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 string filePath = "c:\\test.txt";
 
StreamReader fileStream = new StreamReader(filePath);

string fileContent = fileStream.ReadToEnd();

fileStream.Close();
 
StreamWriter ansiWriter = new StreamWriter(filePath.Replace(".txt", "-ansi.txt"), false);

ansiWriter.Write(fileContent, Encoding.Default);

ansiWriter.Close();

What I get is as result as c:\test-ansi.txt the same file (same size) and same encoding. What I can conclude is that the "Default" encoding of my machine is UTF8.

So then my question is, can you help me to correct the code snippet above so that the "ANSI" encoding will be used, instead of the "Default" one? In Encoding I can find only ASCII, UTF7, UTF16, Unicode and UTF8, I couldn't find the ANSI one...

Thanks in advance, you can't imagine how many tests I did so far...

Post Reply

Plater

ANSI isn't really an encoding type. I think ASCII is the type you are looking for. Although I don't see what the problem with staying in UTF8 is?

firepol

I need ANSI, because a third party application can read only ANSI encoded. I've already tried with ASCII, but it doesn't work (ascii converts accented letters in "?")...

I tried also with GetEncoding(1250) or other code types, no way...

Plater

(oops, there is an ANSI encoding, just not listed in .NET)
1252 didn't work?
It sounds like you just need an 8bit encoding (ascii is 7bit)

You could try someone of the codepages mentioned here:
http://bytes.com/groups/net-c/436214...-ansi-encoding

firepol

By the way, my previous code is wrong... It doesnt seem possible to tell Streamwriter which encoding to use... so, I tried like this, but still no success:

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 string filePath = "c:\\test.txt";
 
StreamReader fileStream = new StreamReader(filePath);

string fileContent = fileStream.ReadToEnd();

Encoding fileEncoding = fileStream.CurrentEncoding;

fileStream.Close();
 
Encoding unicode = Encoding.Unicode;
 
// Here I'm trying to guess which encoding to use, to save as ANSI,

Encoding ansi = Encoding.GetEncoding(1252);
 
Byte[] utf8Bytes = unicode.GetBytes(fileContent);
 
Byte[] ansiBytes = Encoding.Convert(unicode, ansi, utf8Bytes);
 
string ansiContent = ansi.GetString(ansiBytes);
 
// Now writes the content in ANSI

StreamWriter ansiWriter = new StreamWriter(filePath.Replace(".txt", "-ansi.txt"), false);

ansiWriter.Write(ansiContent);

ansiWriter.Close();

I've tried, so far, these encodings:
1250
1252
28591
28592
28593

MSDN - Encoding Class

I really don't know what to do. Notepad saves the content as ANSI, as I need. Maybe I should find an external program to do that job, and call it through c sharp, if it's not possible to achieve this task with c sharp itself... but really is it possible that it lacks this sort of conversion?

Well, now I check the other forum thread you told me... and let you know... if you have some news, do not hesitate to inform me ;) thanks again

firepol

Coool I found the solution!!! My initial code was not so wrong.

What was wrong is that I can't specify the encode in the streamwriter Write() method, but it's possible to specify it when you instantiate the StreamWriter object! So definitively the key to the problem was to write the file with the correct encoding, with streamwriter. No need to convert it before, if you do not specify the encoding, streamwriter writes it anyway in UTF8. So you MUST specify the encoding within streamwriter.

Enough talking... here the working solution:

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 string filePath = "c:\\test.txt";
 
// Reads UTF8 file

StreamReader fileStream = new StreamReader(filePath);

string fileContent = fileStream.ReadToEnd();

fileStream.Close();
 
// Now writes the content in ANSI

StreamWriter ansiWriter = new StreamWriter(filePath.Replace(".txt", "-ansi.txt"), false, Encoding.GetEncoding(1250));

ansiWriter.Write(fileContent);

ansiWriter.Close();

To summarize, the "magic" is in this line, when you instantiate the streamwriter object, do not forget to specify the encoding. If you wanna save as Notepad (as ANSI) use Encoding.GetEncoding(1250).

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 StreamWriter ansiWriter = new StreamWriter(filePath, false, Encoding.GetEncoding(1250));
 

Hope this will help somebody.

Plater

Very odd. Must be a regional thing. My notepad outputs to ascii(or maybe utf8?) I think

firepol

In your case, your default windows encoding is ASCII, probably because you are from the US (no accented letters). In Switzerland (where I come from) or Germany it's ANSI 1250.

Did you try to save this as ASCII? "éàèüöä" (I guess you can't, you have to save it as UTF8)

how to convert UTF8 file into ANSI?

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