How to read an ANSI encoded file containing special characters

c# encoding ansi
Enyra picture Enyra · Sep 16, 2009 · Viewed 80.4k times · Source

I'm writing a TFS Checkin policy, which checks if our source files containing our file header.

My problem is, that our file header contains a special character "©" and unfortunately some of our source files are encoded in ANSI. So if I read these files in the policy, the string looks like this "Copyright � 2009".

string content = File.ReadAllText(pendingChange.LocalItem);

I tired to change the encoding of the string, but it does not help. So how can I read these files, that I get the correct string "Copyright © 2009"?

Answer

Jon Skeet picture Jon Skeet · Sep 16, 2009

Use Encoding.Default:

string content = File.ReadAllText(pendingChange.LocalItem, Encoding.Default);

You should be aware, however, that that reads it using the system default encoding - which may not be the same as the encoding of the file. There's no single encoding called ANSI, but usually when people talk about "the ANSI encoding" they mean Windows Code Page 1252 or whatever their box happens to use.

Your code will be more robust if you can find out the exact encoding used.

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