Charset VB.NET WinRT Reference Documentation

Charset

Current Version: 9.5.0.90

Requires Chilkat Bundle License

A component/class for converting character data from one encoding to another. This software is unique in that the data required for converting to/from the supported charsets is entirely embedded witin the Chilkat DLL/library. It does not depend on what code pages may or may not be installed on a particular computer. This allows programs to operate correctly regardless of the locale, OS version, or other factors.

Object Creation

Dim obj As New Chilkat.Charset()

Properties

AltToCharset

AltToCharset As String

If the ErrorAction property is set to 6, then this property controls how errors are handled. It specifies an alternate "To" charset. When a character in the input data cannot be converted to the target charset, an attempt is made to convert it to the AltToCharset. If that fails, the input character is dropped.

DebugLogFilePath

DebugLogFilePath As String

If set to a file path, causes each Chilkat method or property call to automatically append it's LastErrorText to the specified log file. The information is appended such that if a hang or crash occurs, it is possible to see the context in which the problem occurred, as well as a history of all Chilkat calls up to the point of the problem. The VerboseLogging property can be set to provide more detailed information.

This property is typically used for debugging the rare cases where a Chilkat method call hangs or generates an exception that halts program execution (i.e. crashes). A hang or crash should generally never happen. The typical causes of a hang are:

a timeout related property was set to 0 to explicitly indicate that an infinite timeout is desired,
the hang is actually a hang within an event callback (i.e. it is a hang within the application code), or
there is an internal problem (bug) in the Chilkat code that causes the hang.

ErrorAction

ErrorAction As Integer

Controls how errors are handled. When a character in the input data cannot be converted to the target charset, the action taken is controlled by this property. The possible settings are: (0) drop the error characters, (1) substitute the data set by the SetErrorBytes or SetErrorString method, (2) convert to a hex-escaped string (&#xXXXX), (3) RESERVED, (4) RESERVED, (5) RESERVED, (6) convert the error character to the AltToCharset instead, if that fails then drop the character, (7) Pass non-convertible characters to the output unchanged.

FromCharset

FromCharset As String

Tells the charset converter the charset of the input data for a conversion. Possible values are:

<font size="2" face="MS Sans Serif">
us-ascii
unicode  (also known as UTF16LE or simply UTF16)
unicodefffe  (also known as UTF16BE)
ebcdic
iso-8859-1
iso-8859-2
iso-8859-3
iso-8859-4
iso-8859-5
iso-8859-6
iso-8859-7
iso-8859-8
iso-8859-9
iso-8859-13
iso-8859-15
windows-874
windows-1250
windows-1251
windows-1252
windows-1253
windows-1254
windows-1255
windows-1256
windows-1257
windows-1258
utf-7
utf-8
utf-32
utf-32be
shift_jis
gb2312
ks_c_5601-1987
big5
iso-2022-jp
iso-2022-kr
euc-jp
euc-kr
macintosh
x-mac-japanese
x-mac-chinesetrad
x-mac-korean
x-mac-arabic
x-mac-hebrew
x-mac-greek
x-mac-cyrillic
x-mac-chinesesimp
x-mac-romanian
x-mac-ukrainian
x-mac-thai
x-mac-ce
x-mac-icelandic
x-mac-turkish
x-mac-croatian
asmo-708
dos-720
dos-862
ibm01140
ibm01141
ibm01142
ibm01143
ibm01144
ibm01145
ibm01146
ibm01147
ibm01148
ibm01149
ibm037
ibm437
ibm500
ibm737
ibm775
ibm850
ibm852
ibm855
ibm857
ibm00858
ibm860
ibm861
ibm863
ibm864
ibm865
cp866
ibm869
ibm870
cp875
koi8-r
koi8-u
</font>

LastErrorHtml

LastErrorHtml As String (ReadOnly)

Provides information in HTML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

LastErrorText

LastErrorText As String (ReadOnly)

Provides information in plain-text format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

More Information and Examples

Concept of LastErrorText LastErrorText Standard Information

LastErrorXml

LastErrorXml As String (ReadOnly)

Provides information in XML format about the last method/property called. If a method call returns a value indicating failure, or behaves unexpectedly, examine this property to get more information.

LastInputAsHex

LastInputAsHex As String (ReadOnly)

If SaveLast is set to true, then the input and output of a conversion is saved to allow the exact bytes that are sent to the converter to be seen (for debugging purposes). This property shows the last input data in a hexidecimalized string.

LastInputAsQP

LastInputAsQP As String (ReadOnly)

If SaveLast is set to true, then the input and output of a conversion is saved to allow the exact bytes that are sent to the converter to be seen (for debugging purposes). This property shows the last input data in a quoted-printable string.

LastMethodSuccess

LastMethodSuccess As Boolean

Introduced in version 9.5.0.52

Indicate whether the last method call succeeded or failed. A value of True indicates success, a value of False indicates failure. This property is automatically set for method calls. It is not modified by property accesses. The property is automatically set to indicate success for the following types of method calls:

Any method that returns a string.
Any method returning a Chilkat object, binary bytes, or a date/time.
Any method returning a standard boolean status value where success = True and failure = False.
Any method returning an integer where failure is defined by a return value less than zero.

Note: Methods that do not fit the above requirements will always set this property equal to True. For example, a method that returns no value (such as a "void" in C++) will technically always succeed.

LastOutputAsHex

LastOutputAsHex As String (ReadOnly)

If SaveLast is set to true, then the input and output of a conversion is saved to allow the exact bytes that are sent to the converter to be seen (for debugging purposes). This property shows the last output data in a hexidecimalized string.

LastOutputAsQP

LastOutputAsQP As String (ReadOnly)

If SaveLast is set to true, then the input and output of a conversion is saved to allow the exact bytes that are sent to the converter to be seen (for debugging purposes). This property shows the last output data in a quoted-printable string.

SaveLast

SaveLast As Boolean

Tells the component to keep the input/output byte data in memory after a conversion is complete so the data can be examined via the LastInputAsHex/QP and LastOutputAsHex/QP properties. (for debugging purposes)

ToCharset

ToCharset As String

Tells the charset converter the target charset for a conversion. Possible values are:

<font size="2" face="MS Sans Serif">
us-ascii
unicode  (also known as UTF16LE or simply UTF16)
unicodefffe  (also known as UTF16BE)
ebcdic
iso-8859-1
iso-8859-2
iso-8859-3
iso-8859-4
iso-8859-5
iso-8859-6
iso-8859-7
iso-8859-8
iso-8859-9
iso-8859-13
iso-8859-15
windows-874
windows-1250
windows-1251
windows-1252
windows-1253
windows-1254
windows-1255
windows-1256
windows-1257
windows-1258
utf-7
utf-8
utf-32
utf-32be
shift_jis
gb2312
ks_c_5601-1987
big5
iso-2022-jp
iso-2022-kr
euc-jp
euc-kr
macintosh
x-mac-japanese
x-mac-chinesetrad
x-mac-korean
x-mac-arabic
x-mac-hebrew
x-mac-greek
x-mac-cyrillic
x-mac-chinesesimp
x-mac-romanian
x-mac-ukrainian
x-mac-thai
x-mac-ce
x-mac-icelandic
x-mac-turkish
x-mac-croatian
asmo-708
dos-720
dos-862
ibm01140
ibm01141
ibm01142
ibm01143
ibm01144
ibm01145
ibm01146
ibm01147
ibm01148
ibm01149
ibm037
ibm437
ibm500
ibm737
ibm775
ibm850
ibm852
ibm855
ibm857
ibm00858
ibm860
ibm861
ibm863
ibm864
ibm865
cp866
ibm869
ibm870
cp875
koi8-r
koi8-u
</font>

VerboseLogging

VerboseLogging As Boolean

If set to True, then the contents of LastErrorText (or LastErrorXml, or LastErrorHtml) may contain more verbose information. The default value is False. Verbose logging should only be used for debugging. The potentially large quantity of logged information may adversely affect peformance.

Version

Version As String (ReadOnly)

Version of the component/library, such as "9.5.0.63"

Methods

CharsetToCodePage

Function CharsetToCodePage(ByVal charsetName As String) As Integer

Converts a charset name to a code page number. For example, "iso-8859-1" converts to code page 28591.

CodePageToCharset

Function CodePageToCharset(ByVal codePage As Integer) As String

Converts a code page number to a charset name. For example, 65001 converts to "utf-8".

Returns Nothing on failure

ConvertData

Function ConvertData(ByVal inData As Byte()) As Byte()

Converts character data from one charset to another. Before calling ConvertData, the FromCharset and ToCharset properties must be set to the source and destination charset names, such as "iso-8859-1" or "Shift_JIS".

Returns an empty byte array on failure

ConvertFile

Function ConvertFile(ByVal inPath As String, ByVal destPath As String) As Boolean

Converts a file from one character encoding to another. The FromCharset and ToCharset properties specify the source and destination character encodings. If the ToCharset is utf-16 or utf-8, then the preamble (also known as BOM) is included in the output. (Call ConvertFileNoPreamble to suppress the output of the BOM.)

Returns True for success, False for failure.

More Information and Examples

Convert a File's Character Encoding from UTF-8 to UFT-8-BOM

ConvertFileNoPreamble

Function ConvertFileNoPreamble(ByVal inPath As String, ByVal destPath As String) As Boolean

Converts a file from one character encoding to another. The FromCharset and ToCharset properties specify the source and destination character encodings. No preamble (also known as BOM) is included in the output.

ConvertFromUnicode

Function ConvertFromUnicode(ByVal inData As String) As Byte()

Converts Unicode (utf-16) text to the charset specified by the ToCharset property.

Returns an empty byte array on failure

ConvertFromUtf16

Function ConvertFromUtf16(ByVal uniData As Byte()) As Byte()

Converts utf-16 text to the charset specified by the ToCharset property.

Returns an empty byte array on failure

ConvertHtml

Function ConvertHtml(ByVal inData As Byte()) As Byte()

Converts HTML text from one character encoding to another. The FromCharset and ToCharset properties must be set prior to calling this method. This method automatically edits the META tag within the HTML that indicates the charset.

Returns an empty byte array on failure

ConvertHtmlFile

Function ConvertHtmlFile(ByVal inPath As String, ByVal destPath As String) As Boolean

Converts an HTML file from one character encoding to another. The ToCharset properties must be set prior to calling this method. If the FromCharset is not set, it is obtained from the HTML META tag that indicates the charset. This method automatically edits the META tag within the HTML that indicates the charset.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

ConvertToUnicode

Function ConvertToUnicode(ByVal inData As Byte()) As String

Converts multibyte character data to a Unicode string. The FromCharset property should be set before calling this method.

Returns Nothing on failure

ConvertToUtf16

Function ConvertToUtf16(ByVal mbData As Byte()) As Byte()

To be documented soon.

Returns an empty byte array on failure

EntityEncodeDec

Function EntityEncodeDec(ByVal str As String) As String

Converts non-US-ASCII characters to Unicode decimal entities (&#xxxxx;)

Returns Nothing on failure

EntityEncodeHex

Function EntityEncodeHex(ByVal str As String) As String

Converts non-US-ASCII characters to Unicode hex entities (&#xXXXX;)

Returns Nothing on failure

GetHtmlCharset

Function GetHtmlCharset(ByVal inData As Byte()) As String

Examines HTML text and extracts the charset name specified by the META tag, if present.

Returns Nothing on failure

GetHtmlFileCharset

Function GetHtmlFileCharset(ByVal htmlFilePath As String) As String

Examines an HTML file and extracts the charset name specified by the META tag, if present.

Returns Nothing on failure

HtmlDecodeToStr

Function HtmlDecodeToStr(ByVal inStr As String) As String

Converts HTML entities to Unicode characters.

Returns Nothing on failure

HtmlEntityDecode

Function HtmlEntityDecode(ByVal inHtml As Byte()) As Byte()

Decodes HTML entities. See http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/entities.html for information on HTML entities. Examples of HTML entities are < , å , å , 水 , Í , etc.

Returns an empty byte array on failure

HtmlEntityDecodeFile

Function HtmlEntityDecodeFile(ByVal inPath As String, ByVal destPath As String) As Boolean

Decodes HTML entities in a file and creates a new HTML file with the entities decoded. See http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/sgml/entities.html for information on HTML entities. Examples of HTML entities are < , å , å , 水 , Í , etc.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

LowerCase

Function LowerCase(ByVal inStr As String) As String

Converts a string to lowercase.

Returns Nothing on failure

ReadFile

Function ReadFile(ByVal path As String) As Byte()

Convenience method for reading the entire contents of a file into a byte array.

Returns an empty byte array on failure

ReadFileToString

Function ReadFileToString(ByVal path As String, ByVal charset As String) As String

Reads a text file and returns the text converted to a Unicode string. The filename is specified by the first method argument, and the charset of the text data is specified by the 2nd method argument.

Returns Nothing on failure

SetErrorBytes

Sub SetErrorBytes(ByVal data As Byte())

If the ErrorAction property is set to 1, the bytes passed to this method are used as the result for any characters that cannot be converted during a conversion.

SetErrorString

Sub SetErrorString(ByVal str As String, ByVal charset As String)

If the ErrorAction property is set to 1, the string passed to this method is used as the result for any characters that cannot be converted during a conversion.

UnlockComponent

Function UnlockComponent(ByVal unlockCode As String) As Boolean

Unlocks the component. This method must be called once at the beginning of the program. Properties can be get/set without unlocking, but methods will not work unless the component has been unlocked.

Returns True for success, False for failure.

More Information and Examples

Diagnosing UnlockComponent Problems UnlockComponent LastErrorText shows exact string passed to it.Verify UnlockComponent Success w/ Purchased Unlock Code LastErrorText Standard Information

UpperCase

Function UpperCase(ByVal inStr As String) As String

Converts a string to uppercase.

Returns Nothing on failure

UrlDecodeStr

Function UrlDecodeStr(ByVal inStr As String) As String

URL decodes a string.

Returns Nothing on failure

VerifyData

Function VerifyData(ByVal charset As String, ByVal inData As Byte()) As Boolean

Returns true if the byte data conforms to the charset passed in the first argument.

VerifyFile

Function VerifyFile(ByVal charset As String, ByVal path As String) As Boolean

Returns true if the file contains character data that conforms to the charset passed in the 1st argument.

WriteFile

Function WriteFile(ByVal path As String, ByVal byteData As Byte()) As Boolean

Convenience method for saving an entire byte array to a file.

WriteStringToFile

Function WriteStringToFile(ByVal textData As String, ByVal path As String, ByVal charset As String) As Boolean

Converts a Unicode string to a multibyte charset and writes the multibyte text data to a file. The destination charset is specified in the 2nd method argument.

Returns True for success, False for failure.