Mailing Lists: Apple Mailing Lists
Image of Mac OS face in stamp
 
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: Tao of string encodings (Re: Converting ASCII to UTF-8?)

On Mar 30, 2004, at 5:37 PM, Marco Scheurer wrote:

On Mar 30, 2004, at 11:49 PM, Jim Rankin wrote:

On Mar 29, 2004, at 7:57 PM, Shawn Erickson wrote:

You just need to read things in correctly using the correct encoding
(an encoding matching the source file).

Here's the one piece of the whole encoding puzzle that I've never been
able to figure out.

Your program is handled a file path or url that's ostensibly a text
file. From that point, how do you know the encoding of what you've
just been handed?

Probably missing something obvious...

No, you just can't without more information. That's why in TextEdit you can manually specify the encoding to use to open a file. That being said there are heuristics to guess a text encoding.

In one program I've simply used trial and error, using NSString's -initWithData:encoding: (which returns nil if it fails to create a valid string with the supplied data) and a small set of likely encodings with good results.

Or google for sniffer and encoding.

Mozilla has a fairly good built in sniffer (View->Character Coding->Auto-detect->Universal).
It took them a while to develop and of course its not perfect. There's the problem that it assumes HTTP where you may get a char encoding header to go one. Of course, that's a mixed blessing because many servers are mis-configured and serve the wrong one!



AndyT (lordpixel - the cat who walks through walls)
A little bigger on the inside

(see you later space cowboy ...)
_______________________________________________
cocoa-dev mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives: http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/cocoa-dev
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.

References: 
 >Converting ASCII to UTF-8? (From: "Huyler, Christopher M" <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Converting ASCII to UTF-8? (From: Shawn Erickson <email@hidden>)
 >Tao of string encodings (Re: Converting ASCII to UTF-8?) (From: Jim Rankin <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Tao of string encodings (Re: Converting ASCII to UTF-8?) (From: Marco Scheurer <email@hidden>)



Visit the Apple Store online or at retail locations.
1-800-MY-APPLE

Contact Apple | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2007 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.