Characters missing when reading from file.

[bart.kowalski]

I'm trying to read a text file that contains international
(specifically Polish) characters line by line. I'm using the following
C# code:

FileStream lStream = new FileStream(pFil eName, FileMode.Open);
using (StreamReader lReader = new StreamReader(lS tream))
{
string lLine;
while ((lLine = lReader.ReadLin e()) != null)
ProcessLine(/* blah..blah */);
}

The problem is that all Polish characters are missing. It doesn't even
show them incorrectly. It just completely drops the Polish chars and
the string is shorter than expected as a result. Does anyone know how
to fix this?

[Michael]

Bart,

Just making a guess on this one. Do you know what encoding the Polish file
is in? Check out the StreamReader(St ream, Encoding) constructor. By default
the stream is read in UTF8Encoding. Chaging to the other constructor allows
you to specify ASCII, Unicode, UTF7 or UTF8.

Michael

"ba***********@ gmail.com" wrote:

I'm trying to read a text file that contains international
(specifically Polish) characters line by line. I'm using the following
C# code:

FileStream lStream = new FileStream(pFil eName, FileMode.Open);
using (StreamReader lReader = new StreamReader(lS tream))
{
string lLine;
while ((lLine = lReader.ReadLin e()) != null)
ProcessLine(/* blah..blah */);
}

The problem is that all Polish characters are missing. It doesn't even
show them incorrectly. It just completely drops the Polish chars and
the string is shorter than expected as a result. Does anyone know how
to fix this?

[bart.kowalski]

Michael wrote:

Bart,

Just making a guess on this one. Do you know what encoding the Polish file
is in? Check out the StreamReader(St ream, Encoding) constructor. By default
the stream is read in UTF8Encoding. Chaging to the other constructor allows
you to specify ASCII, Unicode, UTF7 or UTF8.

Thanks. Do you know where I can get more information about the
character encoding?

Regards,
Bart.

[Michael]

That's the real question isn't it! :) Unfortunately, that really depends on
the source of the file. If you are unable to ask the person that created the
file, try Unicode and keep your fingers crossed!

Michael

"ba***********@ gmail.com" wrote:

Michael wrote:

Bart,

Just making a guess on this one. Do you know what encoding the Polish file
is in? Check out the StreamReader(St ream, Encoding) constructor. By default
the stream is read in UTF8Encoding. Chaging to the other constructor allows
you to specify ASCII, Unicode, UTF7 or UTF8.

Thanks. Do you know where I can get more information about the
character encoding?

Regards,
Bart.

[bart.kowalski]

Michael wrote:

That's the real question isn't it! :) Unfortunately, that really depends on
the source of the file. If you are unable to ask the person that created the
file, try Unicode and keep your fingers crossed!

I found out that the file is in ASCII using the Eastern European code
page, and that's why it doesn't work. My question was where can I get
more information about using character encodings and conversions in
..NET, so that I can make it work. I found the MSDN documentation to be
rather short.

Thanks,
Bart.

[Michael]

You mean ANSI then, right? Take a look at
System.Text.Enc oding.GetEncodi ng().

Resources to help you. Good question. I've bene fortunate, the last time I
had to deal with this was many years ago as we have been able to ensure that
files that we needed to parse used UTF8. Try:

Links -
overview - http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/unicode.html
MS's Global Dev Portal - http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/default.mspx

Books (I haven't look at any of these so don't know how good they are) -
.NET Internationaliz ation: The Developer's Guide to Building Global
Windows and Web Applications - http://www.bookpool.com/sm/0321341384
Internationaliz ation and Localization Using Microsoft .NET -
http://www.bookpool.com/sm/1590590023

Michael

"ba***********@ gmail.com" wrote:

>
Michael wrote:

That's the real question isn't it! :) Unfortunately, that really depends on
the source of the file. If you are unable to ask the person that created the
file, try Unicode and keep your fingers crossed!

I found out that the file is in ASCII using the Eastern European code
page, and that's why it doesn't work. My question was where can I get
more information about using character encodings and conversions in
..NET, so that I can make it work. I found the MSDN documentation to be
rather short.

Thanks,
Bart.

[Cor Ligthert [MVP]]

Bart,

Maybe does this help you to find the right code page you have to convert.

http://www.vb-tips.com/dbPages.aspx?...f-76c81839e6c9

As the v is not used in Polish, does the rest of the world as far as I know
not use the l with hypen in it and therefore everybody outside Polen is
mostly saying Walensa.

You should see what "wauwelen" means in Dutch as you are not a fan of him

:-)

Cor

<ba***********@ gmail.comschree f in bericht
news:11******** **************@ b28g2000cwb.goo glegroups.com.. .

>
Michael wrote:

>That's the real question isn't it! :) Unfortunately, that really
depends on
the source of the file. If you are unable to ask the person that created
the
file, try Unicode and keep your fingers crossed!

I found out that the file is in ASCII using the Eastern European code
page, and that's why it doesn't work. My question was where can I get
more information about using character encodings and conversions in
.NET, so that I can make it work. I found the MSDN documentation to be
rather short.

Thanks,
Bart.

[Marc Gravell]

You probably need to find out what encoding (or codepage) was used to
write the file, and pass that in, e.g.

new StreamReader(IS tream, Encoding.UTF8)

or - if the file has byte order marks at the start, you /may/ be able
to auto-detect:

new StreamReader(IS tream, true)

Marc

[bart.kowalski]

Michael wrote:

You mean ANSI then, right? Take a look at
System.Text.Enc oding.GetEncodi ng().

<snip>

Thanks. It works with GetEncoding(125 0). The link you provided contains
some useful information too.

Regards,
Bart.