How do I write out a text file in C# with a code page other than UTF-8?

Question

I want to write out a text file.

Instead of the default UTF-8, I want to write it encoded as ISO-8859-1 which is code page 28591. I have no idea how to do this...

Answer 1

You can have something like this

 switch (EncodingFormat.Trim().ToLower())
    {
        case "utf-8":
            File.WriteAllBytes(fileName, ASCIIEncoding.Convert(ASCIIEncoding.ASCII, new UTF8Encoding(false), convertToCSV(result, fileName)));
            break;
        case "utf-8+bom":
            File.WriteAllBytes(fileName, ASCIIEncoding.Convert(ASCIIEncoding.ASCII, new UTF8Encoding(true), convertToCSV(result, fileName)));
            break;
        case "ISO-8859-1":
            File.WriteAllBytes(fileName, ASCIIEncoding.Convert(ASCIIEncoding.ASCII, Encoding.GetEncoding("iso-8859-1"), convertToCSV(result, fileName)));
            break;
        case ..............
    }

Answer 2

Wrap your StreamWriter with FileStream, this way:

string fileName = "test.txt";
string textToAdd = "Example text in file";
Encoding encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("ISO-8859-1"); //Or any other Encoding

using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.CreateNew))
{
    using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter(fs, encoding))
    {
        writer.Write(textToAdd);
    }
}

Look at MSDN

Answer 3

Simple!

System.IO.File.WriteAllText(path, text, Encoding.GetEncoding(28591));

Answer 4

Change the Encoding of the stream writer. It's a property.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.io.streamwriter.encoding.aspx

So:

sw.Encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding(28591);

Prior to writing to the stream.

Answer 5

using System.IO;
using System.Text;

using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(File.Open(myfilename, FileMode.Create), Encoding.WhateverYouWant))
{    
    sw.WriteLine("my text...");     
}

An alternate way of getting your encoding:

using System.IO;
using System.Text;

using (var sw  = new StreamWriter(File.Open(@"c:\myfile.txt", FileMode.CreateNew), Encoding.GetEncoding("iso-8859-1"))) {
    sw.WriteLine("my text...");             
}

Check out the docs for the StreamWriter constructor.