GetByte adding an extra byte?

[Steven Blair]

string USMesg;

USMesg = "¬Credits¬Remai ning¬";

byte[] bArray = Encoding.UTF8.G etBytes(USMesg) ;

After I execute the code, the first two bytes are:

[0] = 0xC2
[1] = 0xAC //This is the character I was expecting

Why has an extra byte been inserted after each ¬?

I tried using Encoding.ASCII. GetBytes() but that translates my ¬ to a
0x3F (Question mark ?)

Anyone any idea whats happened and how I can get round this problem?

Regards,

Steven


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[Ignacio Machin \( .NET/ C# MVP \)]

Re: GetByte adding an extra byte?

Hi,

Unicode characters use two bytes.

"Steven Blair" <steven.blair@b tinternet.comwr ote in message
news:e9aI%23AM5 HHA.1208@TK2MSF TNGP03.phx.gbl. ..

string USMesg;
>
USMesg = "¬Credits¬Remai ning¬";
>
byte[] bArray = Encoding.UTF8.G etBytes(USMesg) ;
>
After I execute the code, the first two bytes are:
>
[0] = 0xC2
[1] = 0xAC //This is the character I was expecting
>
Why has an extra byte been inserted after each ¬?
>
I tried using Encoding.ASCII. GetBytes() but that translates my ¬ to a
0x3F (Question mark ?)
>
Anyone any idea whats happened and how I can get round this problem?
>
Regards,
>
Steven
>
>
*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

[UL-Tomten]

Re: GetByte adding an extra byte?


On Aug 22, 3:27 pm, Steven Blair <steven.bl...@b tinternet.comwr ote:

USMesg = "¬Credits¬Remai ning¬";
byte[] bArray = Encoding.UTF8.G etBytes(USMesg) ;
[1] = 0xAC //This is the character I was expecting
Why has an extra byte been inserted after each ¬?

This is how UTF-8 works. I assume that when/if you review the UTF-8
specifications, you will find that the character "¬" is to be
represented as 0xC2AC in this particular scenario.

I tried using Encoding.ASCII. GetBytes()

ASCII and UTF-8 are not interchangeable .

Anyone any idea whats happened and how I can get round this problem?

What is happening is that characters are being converted to bytes,
using the character encoding you specify. The process of going
between actual characters and bits is very complex.

Perhaps what you want is Encoding.Defaul t.GetBytes()? This will use
the system default ANSI codepage (in your case Windows-1252, which
internally means ISO-8859-1 (aka "Latin-1" or "Western European")).
This might encode "¬" as 0xAC, or it might not.

However, if you want to write predictable code, you must agree with
whoever will read the bytes back upon which encoding to use.
Otherwise, when reading 0xC2AC back into a string, the reader might
get a tiny picture of a tiny goat instead of the "¬".

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Re: GetByte adding an extra byte?

On Aug 22, 2:27 pm, Steven Blair <steven.bl...@b tinternet.comwr ote:

string USMesg;
>
USMesg = "¬Credits¬Remai ning¬";
>
byte[] bArray = Encoding.UTF8.G etBytes(USMesg) ;
>
After I execute the code, the first two bytes are:
>
[0] = 0xC2
[1] = 0xAC //This is the character I was expecting
>
Why has an extra byte been inserted after each ¬?
>
I tried using Encoding.ASCII. GetBytes() but that translates my ¬ to a
0x3F (Question mark ?)
>
Anyone any idea whats happened and how I can get round this problem?

It sounds like you should read up on the UTF-8 format. Using
Encoding.Defaul t may well give you what you want, but UTF-8 is
generally a better format these days.

See http://pobox.com/~skeet/csharp/unicode.html and the referenced
links there.

Jon

[UL-Tomten]

Re: GetByte adding an extra byte?


On Aug 22, 4:04 pm, "Ignacio Machin \( .NET/ C# MVP \)" <machin TA
laceupsolutions .comwrote:

Unicode characters use two bytes.

O RLY?

"Unicode" can be anything from UTF7 to UTF32. In this case, it was
UTF8. Each use different numbers of bits to represent characters.
Also, UTF8 uses anywhere between 1 and 4 (IIRC) bytes to represent a
character.

Perhaps you were thinking of "wide characters" from old-school Win32
programming?

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

Re: GetByte adding an extra byte?

On Aug 22, 3:04 pm, "Ignacio Machin \( .NET/ C# MVP \)" <machin TA
laceupsolutions .comwrote:

Unicode characters use two bytes.

True, but irrelevant in this case - the important thing is that the
UTF-8 encoded version of the relevant character takes two bytes.
(Other characters can take 1 or 3.)

Jon

[Steven Blair]

Re: GetByte adding an extra byte?

Encoding.Defaul t.GetBytes() does the job.

Thanks for the help.


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[Ignacio Machin \( .NET/ C# MVP \)]

Re: GetByte adding an extra byte?

Opps, too early in the morning and not enough coffee :)


"Jon Skeet [C# MVP]" <skeet@pobox.co mwrote in message
news:1187793164 .749592.108680@ q4g2000prc.goog legroups.com...

On Aug 22, 3:04 pm, "Ignacio Machin \( .NET/ C# MVP \)" <machin TA
laceupsolutions .comwrote:

>Unicode characters use two bytes.

>
True, but irrelevant in this case - the important thing is that the
UTF-8 encoded version of the relevant character takes two bytes.
(Other characters can take 1 or 3.)
>
Jon
>