CreateFile not creating UNICODE file

Hey ho!

I wanna create an XML file which will be in UNICODE format, otherwise EXCEL won't read the local diacritic chars (e.g "ń", "ś", "ć" etc). The chars are in the file after generation but due to some reason EXCEL does not understand it as a compatible XML format. I always need to open the file in notepad manually and change the coding from ANSI to UNICODE (just save as UNICODE) and only then i can open it in EXCEL.

Is there any way of doing this already when the file is created in my program ?
I use this:

Code:

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HANDLE plik = CreateFile( filename, GENERIC_WRITE, 0, NULL, CREATE_ALWAYS, 0, NULL );

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I tried CreateFileW as well as e.g. _T(filename) but the file is always generated as ANSI...

any idea?
would be grateful for any hint.

thankx
berkov
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Have you compiled the program as a unicode program?

Nope, it's "Use Multi-Byte Character Set"
if i change it to UNICODE then all string (and i've got hundreds of them) are red underlined by compiler and the compiler won't let me build.
i am not good at all those conversions but i guess i would have to use _T() with each string if i decide to go for project in UNICODE.

Isn't there any way to just set the property of newly generated file to "UNICODE"?

b
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You are in complete control of the contents of the file. The WriteFile() API deals with bytes. The bytes you tell it to write is what is written.

On Windows when a file is "saved as Unicode" that typically means that a BOM is added to the beginning of the file. This tells readers of the file how the file is encoded.

gg

@Codeplug, ok but then apparently EXCEL wants that "BOM" at the beginning in order to interpret diacritics in the file correctly.
If i create a file using my program and there are some diacritics inside then excel does not understand it.
it's enough to open it in notepad and (not changing the content itself) save as the UNICODE - excel will understand it.
But i wanna be able to create an excel compatible file directly in my program.

>> If i create a file using my program and there are some diacritics inside ...
First you need to know how these characters are encoded. Your local ansi codepage (ACP), UTF8, UTF16? If you don't know, describe where the characters come from.

>> But i wanna be able to create an excel compatible file directly ...
So write the BOM at the beginning of the file, then write the file in the encoding indicated by the BOM.

Or you may be able to just set the proper encoding attribute and not worry about having to covert to Unicode.

gg

hi.. the whole thing with encoding is so messy! :-)
and i need to admit i don't really get it.


so first question, where do i take the chars from?
3 different sources:
- 1st part of the xml comes from another file (template) saved in ANSI
- 2nd from the _bstr_t string entered in the code itself (VS Express in MultiByte mode)
- 3rd from ADO (Access) database also from _bstr_t string
What i tried is to change the 1st part (external ANSI template file) to UNICODE. and run the application but then the WHOLE file generated via my application was in Chinese LOL "‼圼牯獫敨瑥猠㩳慎敭✽敒潰瑲✱‾਍吼扡敬猠㩳硅慰摮摥"

Second question:
i will read that wiki article in more details at work today but what i tired so far is the solution from w3schools.
if i add one of those 3:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="us-ascii"?>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="windows-1252"?>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
excel understands the file and finally opens it, however in any of those my diacritic chars are shown correctly. it's always something like "ê¹ ³¹¿" but again, if I edit the file in notepad and change it to UNICODE the chars in excel are shown correctly (regardless of the encoding header entered into xml itself).
So your solution is good coz the file is "open-able" in excel but if i could have the local diacritics shown correctly within the cells, i would be just more than happy!

Don't create an XML by using createfile and doing it all yourself. There's a LOT of details, and it can be very cumbersome if you have to deal with namespaces.

Use a proper XML library/class.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by berkov

I tried CreateFileW as well as e.g. _T(filename) but the file is always generated as ANSI...

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CreateFile just creates file on file system. What content you're going to put there is totally up to you. You may create file with CreateFileA but still be able to put Unicode content there. Unrelated things, absolutely.

Most of your content comes form _bstr_t strings, which are encoded as "UTF-16LE". Since the majority is already in a Unicode encoding, it's best to keep it in a Unicode encoding so that nothing is lost due to Unicode<->Codepage conversions.

I would recommend using encoding="UTF-8" in your XML template. If your template doesn't have special characters in it, then that's all you'll need to do to the template.

The next step is converting your _bstr_t strings to UTF8 before writing it to the file. You can use the code in this thread to do that: http://forums.codeguru.com/showthrea...82#post1877082
The usage would be something like this:

Code:

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_bstr_t bstr;
std::string utf8str = wstr_to_str((const whcar_t*)bstr, CP_UTF8);
const char *raw = utf8str.c_str();

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gg