I am using the following sample code from Microsoft to generate a file:
Imports System
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text
Module Module1
Sub Main()
Dim path As String = "c:\temp\MyTest.txt"
Dim sw As StreamWriter
' This text is added only once to the file.
If File.Exists(path) = False Then
' Create a file to write to.
Dim createText As String = "Hello and Welcome" + Environment.NewLine
File.WriteAllText(path, createText, Encoding.UTF8)
End If
' This text is always added, making the file longer over time
' if it is not deleted.
Dim appendText As String = "This is extra text" + Environment.NewLine
File.AppendAllText(path, appendText, Encoding.UTF8)
' Open the file to read from.
Dim readText As String = File.ReadAllText(path, Encoding.UTF8)
Console.WriteLine(readText
End Sub
End Module
When I look at the file via notepad it appears fine. However when opening it with HexEdit I find that there are three bytes preceeding the actual text.
Character: EF
Character: BB
Character: BF
and then the text:
Hello and Welcome
This is extra text
My problem is that I have an application that reads the file generated by this method (in my real code). I have no control of the "reading" application. When it sees the first two characters are not the expected values, it fails.
What are these characters and how can I get rid of them?
I have tried setting the encoding to ASCII with no effects.
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Use the overloads that do NOT include the encoding parameter.
From:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com
"This method uses UTF-8 encoding without a Byte-Order Mark (BOM)..."
So:
File.WriteAllText(path, createText)
and:
File.AppendAllText(path, appendText)
with:
Dim readText As String = File.ReadAllText(path)
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by: SanclerPosted on 2006-07-27 at 10:18:00ID: 17194674
The bytes are BOM - byte order markers. I think you will find they were put there by opening and closing the file in Notepad. I'm not able to test right now, but try putting it straight from your output into your hexedit program/function, and see if the problem persists. If it does, you will have to fiddle with the encoding of the output, but I would need to look that up and, as I say, I can't do that right now.
Roger