DataFlex

Convert utf-8 Text File to Windows-1252

Demonstrates how to convert a text file using the utf-8 byte representation to windows-1252. DataFlex

Use ChilkatAx-win32.pkg

Procedure Test
    Boolean iSuccess
    Handle hoBd
    Boolean iAllOrNone
    String sFromCharset
    String sToCharset
    String sTemp1

    Move False To iSuccess

    // Converts a file containing the following to windows-1252:

    // <greetings>
    //     <message>Hello, world!</message>
    //     <message>¡Hola, mundo!</message>
    //     <message>Bonjour, le monde!</message>
    //     <message>Hallo, Welt!</message>
    //     <message>Olá, mundo!</message>
    //     <message>Привет, мир!</message>
    //     <message>你好，世界！</message>
    //     <message>こんにちは、世界！</message>
    //     <message>안녕하세요, 세계!</message>
    //     <message>😊🌍</message>
    // </greetings>

    // --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // Note:
    // Windows-1252 is an 8-bit single-byte encoding. It can only encode:
    // 
    //     The basic ASCII set (0x00–0x7F).
    //     Latin-1 Supplement (0xA0–0xFF), plus some extra printable characters (like curly quotes, €, etc.).
    //     In total: 256 possible code points, covering most Western European languages but nothing outside of Latin script.

    // --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // Characters in your XML that are representable
    // 
    //     Hello, world! ✅ (ASCII only)
    //     ¡Hola, mundo! ✅ (inverted exclamation mark U+00A1 is in Windows-1252)
    //     Bonjour, le monde! ✅
    //     Hallo, Welt! ✅
    //     Olá, mundo! ✅ (U+00E1 á and U+00F3 ó are in Windows-1252)

    // --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    // Characters that break conversion
    // 
    //     Russian / Cyrillic: Привет, мир!
    //     → These are Cyrillic characters (U+041F … U+0440). Not representable in Windows-1252. Conversion would require replacement (e.g. with ? or XML character references).
    //     Chinese: 你好，世界！
    //     → CJK ideographs (U+4F60, U+597D, etc.). Not in Windows-1252.
    //     Japanese: こんにちは、世界！
    //     → Hiragana + CJK. Not in Windows-1252.
    //     Korean: 안녕하세요, 세계!
    //     → Hangul syllables. Not in Windows-1252.
    //     Emoji: 😊🌍
    //     → Unicode Supplementary Multilingual Plane (U+1F60A, U+1F30D). Windows-1252 cannot encode any emoji.

    Get Create (RefClass(cComChilkatBinData)) To hoBd
    If (Not(IsComObjectCreated(hoBd))) Begin
        Send CreateComObject of hoBd
    End

    // Load the utf-8 bytes.
    Get ComLoadFile Of hoBd "qa_data/xml/utf8test.xml" To iSuccess
    If (iSuccess = False) Begin
        Get ComLastErrorText Of hoBd To sTemp1
        Showln sTemp1
        Procedure_Return
    End

    // If allOrNone = True, then the conversion fails and the contents of the BinData
    // are left unchanged if any char is unconvertable.

    // If allOrNone = False, then non-convertable chars are discarded.
    Move False To iAllOrNone
    Move "utf-8" To sFromCharset
    Move "windows-1252" To sToCharset
    Get ComCharsetConvert Of hoBd sFromCharset sToCharset iAllOrNone To iSuccess

    // The return value will be False if any utf-8 chars were discarded because of non-convertability.
    If (iSuccess = False) Begin
        Showln "Some utf-8 chars could not be converted to windows-1252"
    End
    Else Begin
        Showln "All utf-8 chars were converted to windows-1252"
    End

    Get ComWriteFile Of hoBd "c:/temp/qa_output/out.xml" To iSuccess

    // The output file contains the following, where all non-convertable chars were discarded

    // <greetings>
    //     <message>Hello, world!</message>
    //     <message>¡Hola, mundo!</message>
    //     <message>Bonjour, le monde!</message>
    //     <message>Hallo, Welt!</message>
    //     <message>Olá, mundo!</message>
    //     <message>, !</message>
    //     <message></message>
    //     <message></message>
    //     <message>, !</message>
    //     <message></message>
    // </greetings>


End_Procedure