Saving Chinese CHaracters to txtfile

[Sylpheed]

Hi all, i'm trying to save chiense CHaracters to a textfile on my pc, here's what i have.

Private Sub CommandButton1_Click()
        ' create a Unicode text file with Chinese character
        ' Dan1 and English character D.
        Open "unicode.txt" For Binary As #1
        Put #1, , TextBox1.Text
        Close #1
      End Sub

The chinese characters i'm trying to save are these 3 words "简体字"

The textbox i'm using are 2.0 Forms and when pasting these 3 words on the textbox it displays properly after setting the font to Arial_Unicode_MS, Script is Chinese_GB2312

however when i click on the button what i get in my "unicode.txt" is ???

My font on my notepad for this textfile is also set to Arial_Unicode_MS, script : Chinese_GB2312. If i copy and paste the 3 chinese characters "简体字" it displays properly on my notepad.

Anyone know what's the code i'm missing to fix this problem?

thx

[CHAMPGARY]

Hello,

Did you try the same with Microsoft word document.If your requirement is not only for text file you may try this. I have created 2-3 applications where I need to store/access data with Japanese text. For me forms2 controls & microsoft word document,Access database works fine.

Regards,
Champgary

[Sylpheed]

Hi, i tried MSWord, it gives me this "???ND "

When i copy and paste "简体字" on MSWord, it tells me that the font is "玭伐╰参虏砰" which i have no idea what does that mean..

[CHAMPGARY]

Hello Sylpheed ,

Are you using windows non-chinese version ( I mean english,other language).Because I had developed my application on Japanese windows 2000. So it need not to install any language packs or support but if u r not using then for input of Asian characters like chinese/japanes/korean you should install Microsoft global IME(Input Method Editor). I think it's freeware and very easy to Install.

Please refer thelink1
for more information.

Regards,
Champgary

[Sylpheed]

Hi, thx for the reply.

Yup i'm using english version of WInXP Pro, but i do have the asian language packs installed. Do i need to activate something? or set some settings even with my language pack installed for it to work?

[Merri]

The problem here is that the default file handling functions convert strings automatically to ANSI (and from ANSI to Unicode when loading).

Now, to skip this problem, you have to skip the automatical conversion by using a byte array (which is the easiest solution in this case):

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Dim barTemp() As Byte
    barTemp = Text1.Text
    Open "unicode.txt" For Binary As #1
        Put #1, , barTemp
    Close #1
End Sub

When loading, you reserve enough space to a byte array and then use Get to load all the data to the byte array. Then just do Text1.Text = barTemp and you should be able to load Unicode as well.

[Sylpheed]

Hi thx for the tip, but i get an error at this line

barTemp = Text1.Text

is there some function i need to call to convert string to byte?

[Merri]

No, it should work from there. Do you really have a textbox named Text1?

[Sylpheed]

Opps.. lol my mistake.. it nolonger gives an error but my txt file says it's "€{SOW["

same for MSWOrd.

This also happens when i call StrConv(textbox1.text, vbUnicode)

[Merri]

It is perfectly correct, it is the string in Unicode format. When loading, you need to do this:

Private Sub Command2_Click()
    Dim barTemp() As Byte
    ReDim barTemp(FileLen("unicode.txt") - 1)
    Open "unicode.txt" For Binary As #1
        Get #1, , barTemp
    Close #1
    Text1.Text = barTemp
End Sub

This should load it correctly.


Oh, and Word displays it incorrectly because the text file has no BoM (byte order mark). It is two bytes long and it is used to tell the text file is a Unicode file. Although old text editors display it as garbage and you need to skip it in the code if you add it to the file. Without a BoM the file is assumed by programs to be an ANSI file.

[Sylpheed]

Thank you very much for your help. I'm very new to using asian languages in VB projects. when you say BoM, is it the first 2 characters? I heard when you save unicodes there's 2 characters said ahead then it's what you want to save.

As for MSWord, do you mean i can save my chinese characters on MSword and it will show itself as chinese characters when i open the word doc?

How do i go about skipping the BoM when saving to file?

[Merri]

When you save a regular textfile (which is all different from Microsoft Word document), you first write the BoM (which is two bytes in this case, you can find more information about it on unicode.org's FAQ). When you open your regular text file in Word, it checks for BoM and if it finds it, it will treat the file as the BoM tells it. So you have to save the BoM if you want other programs to treat the text file correctly.

Basically the BoM is as long as one character (2 bytes = one character in UTF-16). So when you're saving, you could just add the BoM character at the beginning, push out the Unicode text data and you're done. When loading, you drop the first character, it is as simple as doing Mid$(CStr(barTemp), 2). It will be up to you if you want to make the program wise enough to notice if the BoM actually exists and that it is correct.

Before you ask what is Big Endian and Little Endian: Windows uses Little Endian