Encodingkeyword

Specifies character format of a text file

Syntax

Open filename for {Input|Output|Append} Encoding "utf-8"|"utf-16"|"utf-32"|"ascii" as [#]filenum

Parameters

Name		Description
`filename`		for {Input\|Output\|Append} file name to open for `Input`, `Output`, or `Append` `Encoding "utf-8"\|"utf-16"\|"utf-32"\|"ascii"` indicates encoding type for the file
`filenum`		unused file number to associate with the open file

Description

Encoding specifies the format for an Unicode text file, so Winput # and Print # use the correct encoding. If omitted from an Open statement, "ascii" encoding is the default.

Only little endian character encodings are supported at the moment.

"utf8",
"utf16"
"utf32"
"ascii" (the default)

Remarks

Platform Differences

Unicode (w)strings are not supported in the DOS port of FreeBASIC

Dialect Differences

Not available in the -lang qb dialect unless referenced with the alias __Encoding.

Differences from QB

QB had no support for Unicode

Example

'' This example will:

'' 1) Write a string to a text file with utf-16 encoding

'' 2) Display the byte contents of the file

'' 3) Read the text back from the file

''

'' WSTRING's will work as well but STRING has been

'' used in this example since not all consoles support

'' printing WSTRING's.



'' The name of the file to use in this example

Dim f As String

f = "sample.txt"



''

Scope

  Dim s As String

  s = "FreeBASIC"



  Print "Text to write to " + f + ":"

  Print s

  Print



  '' open a file for output using utf-16 encoding

  '' and print a short message

  Open f For Output Encoding "utf-16" As #1



  '' The ascii string is converted to utf-16

  Print #1, s

  Close #1

End Scope



''

Scope

  Dim s As String, n As LongInt



  '' open the same file for binary and read all the bytes

  Open f For Binary As #1

  n = LOF(1)

  s = Space( n )

  Get #1,,s

  Close #1

  

  Print "Binary contents of " + f + ":"

  For i As Integer = 1 To n

    Print Hex( Asc( Mid( s, i, 1 )), 2); " ";

  Next

  Print

  Print



End Scope



''

Scope

  Dim s As String

  

  '' open a file for input using utf-16 encoding

  '' and read back the message

  Open f For Input Encoding "utf-16" As #1



  '' The ascii string is converted from utf-16

  Line Input #1, s

  Close #1



  '' Display the text

  Print "Text read from " + f + ":"

  Print s

  Print

End Scope

Output:

Text to write to sample.txt:
FreeBASIC

Binary contents of sample.txt:
FF FE 46 00 72 00 65 00 65 00 42 00 41 00 53 00 49 00 43 00 0D 00 0A 00 

Text read from sample.txt:
FreeBASIC

Reference

Documented in KeyPgEncoding.html