Unicode Encoding

[Guest]

Hello All:

I have a windows application that I need to encode a string using Unicode.
The example I have been given to use is a Web-Version. Below is the webcode.

Response.ContentEncoding=System.Text.Encoding.Unicode;
Response.ContentType = "application/postscript";
Response.Buffer =true;
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition","attachment; filename=\"" +
sFilename + "\"");

Byte[] ba = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(sPSFile);
Byte[] by = new System.Byte[1];
for(int i=0;i<ba.Length;i+=2)
{
by[0]=ba;
Response.BinaryWrite(by);
}
Response.End();

I am having a hard time converting this code into the windows equivalent so
that the files remain the same. Would anyone be able to help?

I know what I am trying is not working. I thought I had to start down this
path:
Byte[] ba = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(postScript);
UnicodeEncoding encoding = new UnicodeEncoding();
postScript = encoding.GetString(ba);

But I know the encoding.GetString() simply converts it back to a string.
How do I get the value postScript to be the encoded value?

Thanks
Andy

 

[ssamuel]

Hi, Andy.

I assume "windows version" for you means a C# WinForms application
since you're posting on a C# board.

All .NET strings are Unicode encoded. If you're getting your data into
a string, you're getting it in Unicode.

It looks like you're trying to read a Postscript file out of a MIME
attachment. I don't have the rest of your "webcode," but chances are,
your MIME attachment is Base64 encoded. If you rip the Base64-encoded
content out of the BOF and EOF markers, you'll still need to decode it
into binary bytes (as opposed to Base64 characters) before you can do
anything useful with it.

Try System.Convert.FromBase64String() on your data. That'll give you
back a byte[], which you can then turn your UnicodeEncoding on.


HTH!

Stephan

 

[Guest]

Stephan:

Thank you very much for your help. I appreciate it immensly. You are
correct in your assumption about WinForms and C#.

Please forgive me, as this is my first forray into any type of encoding. My
google searches confused me even more.

Unfortunately: I am unsure exactly how the MIME attachment is encoded, as
this comes from a component, of which I do not have access to the code.

However: I took your suggestion and used this code:
Byte[] ba = System.Convert.FromBase64String(postScript);
UnicodeEncoding encoding = new UnicodeEncoding();
postScript = encoding.GetString(ba);

But now I am getting an error stating: "System.FormatException: Invalid
character in a Base-64 string. at System.Convert.FromBase64String(String s)"


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, Andy.

I assume "windows version" for you means a C# WinForms application
since you're posting on a C# board.

All .NET strings are Unicode encoded. If you're getting your data into
a string, you're getting it in Unicode.

It looks like you're trying to read a Postscript file out of a MIME
attachment. I don't have the rest of your "webcode," but chances are,
your MIME attachment is Base64 encoded. If you rip the Base64-encoded
content out of the BOF and EOF markers, you'll still need to decode it
into binary bytes (as opposed to Base64 characters) before you can do
anything useful with it.

Try System.Convert.FromBase64String() on your data. That'll give you
back a byte[], which you can then turn your UnicodeEncoding on.


HTH!

Stephan

Hello All:

I have a windows application that I need to encode a string using Unicode.
The example I have been given to use is a Web-Version. Below is the webcode.

Response.ContentEncoding=System.Text.Encoding.Unicode;
Response.ContentType = "application/postscript";
Response.Buffer =true;
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition","attachment; filename=\"" +
sFilename + "\"");

Byte[] ba = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(sPSFile);
Byte[] by = new System.Byte[1];
for(int i=0;i<ba.Length;i+=2)
{
by[0]=ba;
Response.BinaryWrite(by);
}
Response.End();

I am having a hard time converting this code into the windows equivalent so
that the files remain the same. Would anyone be able to help?

I know what I am trying is not working. I thought I had to start down this
path:
Byte[] ba = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(postScript);
UnicodeEncoding encoding = new UnicodeEncoding();
postScript = encoding.GetString(ba);

But I know the encoding.GetString() simply converts it back to a string.
How do I get the value postScript to be the encoded value?

Thanks
Andy

 

[ssamuel]

Andy,

What's the string (postScript) look like? Where are you getting it
from?

I'm still assuming your source component is emitting a MIME-encoded
message and that's what the variable postScript contains. Is this
correct? Do you know anything about what the source is *supposed* to be
sending? If it is a MIME message, there are some headers that you have
to strip. Have you done this?

It looks like you're trying to feed more than just some Base64-encoded
text into the decoder. A (likely) reason that this could happen is if
you're not stripping the headers.

It would be helpful if you could post the fist couple hundred
characters of the string you're trying to decode (postScript).


Stephan

Stephan:

Thank you very much for your help. I appreciate it immensly. You are
correct in your assumption about WinForms and C#.

Please forgive me, as this is my first forray into any type of encoding. My
google searches confused me even more.

Unfortunately: I am unsure exactly how the MIME attachment is encoded, as
this comes from a component, of which I do not have access to the code.

However: I took your suggestion and used this code:
Byte[] ba = System.Convert.FromBase64String(postScript);
UnicodeEncoding encoding = new UnicodeEncoding();
postScript = encoding.GetString(ba);

But now I am getting an error stating: "System.FormatException: Invalid
character in a Base-64 string. at System.Convert.FromBase64String(String s)"


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, Andy.

I assume "windows version" for you means a C# WinForms application
since you're posting on a C# board.

All .NET strings are Unicode encoded. If you're getting your data into
a string, you're getting it in Unicode.

It looks like you're trying to read a Postscript file out of a MIME
attachment. I don't have the rest of your "webcode," but chances are,
your MIME attachment is Base64 encoded. If you rip the Base64-encoded
content out of the BOF and EOF markers, you'll still need to decode it
into binary bytes (as opposed to Base64 characters) before you can do
anything useful with it.

Try System.Convert.FromBase64String() on your data. That'll give you
back a byte[], which you can then turn your UnicodeEncoding on.


HTH!

Stephan

Hello All:

I have a windows application that I need to encode a string using Unicode.
The example I have been given to use is a Web-Version. Below is the webcode.

Response.ContentEncoding=System.Text.Encoding.Unicode;
Response.ContentType = "application/postscript";
Response.Buffer =true;
Response.AppendHeader("Content-Disposition","attachment; filename=\"" +
sFilename + "\"");

Byte[] ba = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(sPSFile);
Byte[] by = new System.Byte[1];
for(int i=0;i<ba.Length;i+=2)
{
by[0]=ba;
Response.BinaryWrite(by);
}
Response.End();

I am having a hard time converting this code into the windows equivalent so
that the files remain the same. Would anyone be able to help?

I know what I am trying is not working. I thought I had to start down this
path:
Byte[] ba = System.Text.Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(postScript);
UnicodeEncoding encoding = new UnicodeEncoding();
postScript = encoding.GetString(ba);

But I know the encoding.GetString() simply converts it back to a string.
How do I get the value postScript to be the encoded value?

Thanks
Andy

 

[Christof Nordiek]

Hi Andy,

why do you increment i by 2. Even though Unicode (or UTF-16 to be precise),
is a 2-Byte code, 1 Byte is still 1 Byte. You increnet by to, but copy only
1 Byte per iteration thereby loosing half of each character.

Also it may be more performant copying greater chunks.

 

[Guest]

Stephan:

Unfortunately: I am not familiar with what is supposed to be sending as
this component was written by someone long before I was at this company, so I
don't have much knowledge of it.

What is happening is: we have item layouts that are XML files. This XML is
being passed into the component, which returns a postScript file (or
postScript of some sort). Once we get this postScript, it is then converted
to a .pdf file. I was to write a windows automated version that followed the
same logic as our web-version (which was manual and time consuming).
Everything seemed to be working wiht my version until we discovered a pdf
that didn't display correctly and it seemed to be an encoding issue.

Here are the first 200 characters of the "postScript" that is returned.

%!PS-AdobeFont-1.0: TimesNewRomanPS-Italic 001.000
%%CreationDate: 2/10/00 at 7:13 PM
%%VMusage: 1024 28747
% Generated by Fontographer 4.1
% Copyright \(c\) 1988, 1990 Adobe Systems Incorporate

I have not stripped out any messages, as it doesn't appear the web-version
was doing this. Perhaps I need to do this?

 

[Guest]

Hello Christof:

Unfortunately: I am not able to answer this question as to why they
increment by 2 as this was written before I was with this company. I was
just given this code as an example of how it works.

Thanks
Andy

 

[ssamuel]

Andy,

You say it was working fine until a file didn't work. Does this mean
that there's one file that doesn't work, or that you wrote a system and
it hasn't worked yet?

If it's just this one file, it's not an encoding issue. It's probably
because your PS refers to a PS font rather than a PS page definition.
The PS-to-PDF won't work on your source document because it describes a
different thing.


Stephan

 

[Guest]

Hello All:

I just wanted to let you know I found the issue. When I write the file out,
I had to set the StreamWriter to System.Text.Endoding.Default and all was
good.

The reason it worked prior was they used different characters on this other
file than other files were using.

Thanks to all for helping. I do greatly apprecaite it.