How to read Swedish characters properly from a txt file

Asked 13/12, 2012 at 0:39 Answered 17/7, 2019 at 8:31

Solved c#file encoding character-encoding stream

I am reading a file (line by line) full of Swedish characters like äåö but how can I read and save the strings with Swedish characters. Here is my code and I am using UTF8 encoding:

TextReader tr = new StreamReader(@"c:\testfile.txt", System.Text.Encoding.UTF8, true);
tr.ReadLine() //returns a string but Swedish characters are not appearing correctly...

Runyan answered 13/12, 2012 at 0:39 Comment(11)

What's not working exactly? – Baluster 13/12, 2012 at 0:41

the string being returned by tr.ReadLine() doesn't show Swedish characters. – Runyan 13/12, 2012 at 0:42

C# strings are always UTF-16 encoded. By passing the UTF-8 encoding to your StreamReader reading a line returns a properly encoded UTF-16 string object. It now only depends on how you output your string... – Elamite 13/12, 2012 at 0:44

It is showing like this: � � � � � � – Runyan 13/12, 2012 at 0:45

do you have any suggestions about how should I format the output? – Runyan 13/12, 2012 at 0:45

"It shows" is a little vague. The console? The file you write? Your web application? – Elamite 13/12, 2012 at 0:45

It's a console app. The input file is a text file and I will be writing to a web application. – Runyan 13/12, 2012 at 0:46

Take a look at this SO question: #388990 I think the command line is causing the problems... – Elamite 13/12, 2012 at 0:47

No, I am not writing to a command line. I am saving the inputs into another web application – Runyan 13/12, 2012 at 0:48

Its the code page associated. Take a look here at the MS site and get the correct code page and set it. msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.text.encoding.aspx – Bantustan 13/12, 2012 at 0:51

Can you help me figure out the correct code for Swedish language? – Runyan 13/12, 2012 at 0:53

You need to change the System.Text.Encoding.UTF8 to System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(1252). See below

        System.IO.TextReader tr = new System.IO.StreamReader(@"c:\testfile.txt", System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(1252), true);
        tr.ReadLine(); //returns a string but Swedish characters are not appearing correctly

Bantustan answered 13/12, 2012 at 1:3 Comment(0)

I figured it out myself i.e System.Text.Encoding.Default will support Swedish characters.

TextReader tr = new StreamReader(@"c:\testfile.txt", System.Text.Encoding.Default, true);

Runyan answered 13/12, 2012 at 1:1 Comment(3)

Why did you set the input encoding to UTF-8 then? – Elamite 13/12, 2012 at 1:2

@Runyan Yes if your default language is for the swedish language then yes it will work. If not see my post which gives you the code page for it. – Bantustan 13/12, 2012 at 1:4

It has nothing to do with the language or character support, both UTF-8 and CP1252 support swedish language. It has to do with the file encoding, which is CP1252. You always have to know the encoding (rather than the language) of the file to read it properly. – Chevron 13/12, 2012 at 8:47

System.Text.Encoding.UTF8 should be enough and it is supported both on .NET Framework and .NET Core https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.text.encoding?redirectedfrom=MSDN&view=netframework-4.8

If you still have issues with �� characters (instead of having ÅÖÄ) then check the source file - what kind of encoding does it have? Maybe it's ANSI, then you have to convert to UTF8.

You can do it in Notepad++. You can open text file and go to Encoding - Convert to UTF-8.

Alternatively in the source code (C#):

var myString = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(File.ReadAllBytes(pathToTheTextFile));

Slander answered 17/7, 2019 at 8:31 Comment(0)

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