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Working with UTF8 characters...

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11 Mar 2008CPOL 24.7K   7   4
it is not difficult to work with UTF 8 characters anymore...

Introduction

Some times situation is like we have to parse the string which has both Unicode and ASCII characters in single string, at that time Encoding functions in .NET will not be help ful,
so i have created two use full functions for that situations...

Background

this article requires some headache with working with UTF 8 characters. just kidding..

you should know the string formate in .NET and how one character is recognize as unicode in 16 bits(2 bytes)

Using the code

These two function will solve our problem fro converting UTF characters to bytes and from bytes to UTF characters.
public static string GetUTF8StringFrombytes(byte[] byteVal)

        {            

            byte[] btOne = new byte[1];

            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder("");

            char uniChar;

            for (int i = 0; i < byteVal.Length; i++)

            {

                btOne[0] = byteVal[i];

                if (btOne[0] > 127)

                {

                    uniChar = Convert.ToChar(btOne[0]);

                    sb.Append(uniChar);

                }

                else

                    sb.Append(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(btOne));

            }

            return sb.ToString();

        }



        public static byte[] GetBytesFromUTF8Chars(string strVal)

        {

            if (strVal != string.Empty || strVal != null)

            {

                byte btChar;

                byte[] btArr = new byte[strVal.Length * 2];

                byte[] tempArr;

                int arrIndex = 0;

                for (int i = 0; i < strVal.Length; i++)

                {

                    btChar = (byte)strVal[i];

                    if (btChar > 127 && btChar < 256)

                    {

                        btArr[arrIndex] = btChar;

                        arrIndex++;

                    }

                    else

                    {

                        tempArr = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(strVal[i].ToString());

                        Array.Copy(tempArr, 0, btArr, arrIndex, tempArr.Length);

                        arrIndex += tempArr.Length;

                        tempArr = null;

                    }

                }

                byte[] retVal = new byte[arrIndex];

                Array.Copy(btArr, 0, retVal, 0, arrIndex);

                return retVal;

            }

            else

                return new byte[0];

        }


Points of Interest

Just providing some solution which i have found while have problem, so that other will not face them.

History

If any improvements are suggested then they are welcomes.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Software Developer
India India
Chirag Patel, a Programmer Analyst in a well known IT company working on .NET Technologies since last 2 years. He is interested in Pure business logic and fuzzy logic. his area of interest is in C#.NET, VB.NET and MSSQL 2005.

catch me on: http://groups.google.com/group/codewar

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralIncorrect Pin
Jonathan [Darka]11-Mar-08 8:28
professionalJonathan [Darka]11-Mar-08 8:28 
GeneralRe: Incorrect Pin
JustChiragPatel11-Mar-08 17:26
JustChiragPatel11-Mar-08 17:26 
GeneralDon't use that Pin
TheDarkMan11-Mar-08 4:34
TheDarkMan11-Mar-08 4:34 
GeneralRe: Don't use that Pin
JustChiragPatel11-Mar-08 17:30
JustChiragPatel11-Mar-08 17:30 

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