Removing BOM from string

[Jay Royall]

Hi, I have developed a rountine that builds a string using the StringBuilder class and then creates a CSV file from the string. The CSV file is then used to import data into another application. However, after creating the CSV file there is BOM at the start of the file which is preventing me from importing into the 3rd party application. My question is how can I create the CSV file without the BOM? Thanks for your time.

[Covean]

Can you please post some code snippets (like creating this string by your StringBuilder, writing the CSV file, ...), cause I never heard of such a strange behaviour.

Greetings Covean

[DaveAuld]

BOM will only appear if you have put it there. Definitely need to see code to work out where it is being generated.

Dave Don't forget to vote on messages! Find Me On: Web|Facebook|Twitter|LinkedIn Waving? dave.m.auld[at]googlewave.com

[Jay Royall]

Thanks both of you but I have resolved it. I was using:

Dim outFile As IO.StreamWriter = My.Computer.FileSystem.OpenTextFileWriter(csvFile, False)

which was creating the file as UFT-8 which seemd to insert the BOM. I have changed it to:

Dim outFile As IO.StreamWriter = My.Computer.FileSystem.OpenTextFileWriter(csvFile, False, System.Text.Encoding.ASCII)

which doesn't insert the BOM. Thanks for your time.

[Lost User]

As you discovered there is a difference between UTF-8 and ASCII. UTF-8 files always have the header 0xEF 0xBB 0xBF so any program reading text files should check for this and not just assume the content is pure ASCII. C# programs tend to handle this automatically in most cases.

MVP 2010 - are they mad?

[Jay Royall]

Another lesson learned :D Thanks

[Lost User]

Liqz wrote:

Another lesson learned

Same here, I learned it the hard way ... ;)

MVP 2010 - are they mad?