VS2012 .NET 4.5 - StreamWriter produces Garbage

I very rarely write to text files, but have encountered a situation where I cannot avoid it. I am using a StreamWriter to write lines of text to a text file. Here is a sample of what I have:

vb.net Code:

Dim WriteThisInfo As String = "12345678901234567890"
 
Using myStream As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter("Sample.txt")
 
     myStream.WriteLine(WriteThisInfo)
 
End Using

When I open the text file, this is what I see:

†††〲㌱㘰㈰㘱㠱〲〲㌱㘰㈰㘱㠱ㄴ‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰� �†‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰††‰


Any ideas?

If it helps at all, I am actually writing fields, so it is actually a little closer to this:

vb.net Code:

Dim string1 As String = "123"
Dim string2 As String = "789"
Dim WriteThisInfo As String = string1.PadRight(6) & string2.PadRight(6)
 
Using myStream As StreamWriter = New StreamWriter("Sample.txt")
    myStream.WriteLine(WriteThisInfo)
End Using

my guess is that your PC's default language isn't English. right?
try using an encoding option:

Code:

---

Dim WriteThisInfo As String = "12345678901234567890"

Using myStream As New IO.StreamWriter("Sample.txt", False, System.Text.Encoding.Default)
    myStream.WriteLine(WriteThisInfo)
End Using

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by .paul.

my guess is that your PC's default language isn't English. right?

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No, it's definitely English. I tried going down that path too, so I have tested using Encoding.Default and Encoding.ASCII but still got the same results. I don't see how this can happen when using different encoding types.

what are you using to open the file?

Try UTF-8 as the encoding. All I can think of is that somehow, the CultureInfo of your PC is messing things up, but that's all I've got.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by .paul.

what are you using to open the file?

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The file doesn't exist, so StreamWriter creates it at runtime.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by formlesstree4

Try UTF-8 as the encoding. All I can think of is that somehow, the CultureInfo of your PC is messing things up, but that's all I've got.

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The file I am creating will be read into another system, and the system specs require a flat ASCII file (no unprintable characters)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by circuits2

Quote:

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Originally Posted by .paul.

what are you using to open the file?

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The file doesn't exist, so StreamWriter creates it at runtime.

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no... what are you using to open the file to verify what was written?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by .paul.

no... what are you using to open the file to verify what was written?

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Sorry, opening in Notepad.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by .paul.

no... what are you using to open the file to verify what was written?

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Strangely enough, if I open in WordPad it looks normal.........?

:eek: You broke Notepad? How's that even possible?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dunfiddlin

:eek: You broke Notepad? How's that even possible?

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Yes, I seem to be stuck in the notepad black hole of encoding problems. :wave:

What I don't understand, is the default encoding is UTF-8, which notepad should read just fine, but doesn't want to for me. I guess I made it mad.

This is curious. Could you attach the text file that's pwning Notepad ?

Here you go Niya!

Just noticed something else that is weird. The default encoding is UTF-8. I have tried using Encoding.Default, which produced the results previously stated. However, if I use Encoding.UTF8, it actually displays in notepad correctly. Now if I could just figure out why it will not display ASCII.

Fun fact: If I open the file in Notepad as ANSI, instead of Unicode (my system defaults to Unicode) I get the correct text.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by formlesstree4

Fun fact: If I open the file in Notepad as ANSI, instead of Unicode (my system defaults to Unicode) I get the correct text.

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What in God's name :confused:.....I have to open it as UTF-8 for it to work correctly. Any other encoding produces garbage, even ANSI. This is really strange indeed.

[EDIT]

Wow, now it just took a turn into Twilight Zone strange....It opens correctly some of the time in NotePad using UTF-8. I really don't know where to start on figuring this out. Unicode is one strange beast indeed.