problem with Arabic language.

[hash4sp]

Hello,

I have been haunted by this issue for a long time. I have a list of cities in a .DBF file called as "cities1.db f". When i query the Arabic field & try to display in a drop down list, it shows some garbage values & not the actual arabic text.

Is this something to do with the encoding decoding. Earlier i tried do solve this with the .net Encoding decoding, but couldnt get success.

Please advise.

.aspx
----------
<body>
    <form id="form1" runat="server">
    <div>
    Cities_Arabic <asp:DropDownList ID="DropDownList1" runat="server" DataValueField ="city_lcase" DataTextField="city_a"></asp:DropDownList>
    </div>
    </form>
</body>

.aspx.vb
------------
Dim cityName As String = "_cities"
Dim strSql As String = "SELECT * FROM cities1"
DropDownList1.DataSource = generalClass.ExecuteDataTableQueryDBF(strSql, cityName)
DropDownList1.DataBind()

Public Shared Function ExecuteDataTableQueryDBF(ByVal SelectSTR As String, ByVal city As String) As Data.DataTable
        Dim oCnn As New OleDbConnection
        Dim iCount As Integer = 0
        Dim strSql As String
        Dim da As New OleDbDataAdapter
        Dim dt As New DataTable
        Try
            oCnn.ConnectionString = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("DBFConnetionString1").ToString + city + System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("DBFConnetionString2").ToString

            If oCnn.State = ConnectionState.Closed Then
                oCnn.Open()
            End If

            strSql = SelectSTR
            da = New OleDb.OleDbDataAdapter(strSql, oCnn)
            da.Fill(dt)

        Catch ex As Exception
        Finally
            If oCnn.State = ConnectionState.Open Then
                oCnn.Close()
            End If
        End Try
        Return dt
    End Function

Here is a link to the problem screen shot which i am facing.

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ByWx5M6jkZ1tuOgbgQ2kuA?feat=directlink

Thanks & regards,

[hash4sp]

hello.. is there anyone who can give me some suggestion on this please

[Frinavale]

I think this has a lot to do with the character set that is being used.
If the character set being used doesn't support Arabic characters then you won't be able to display them..

Check out this thread on Arabic in ASP.

Also check out this MSDN article on Character Set Recognition.

And check out this CodeProject article about Encoding in ASP.NET.

-Frinny