NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:fileName non-english letters - iphone

Question

I have a file with many lines separated by "\n". One of the lines is:
Christian Grundekjøn
I can't read the file unless I delete the line. I use the following code to read line by line:
for (NSString *line in [[NSString stringWithContentsOfFile:fileName encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:NULL] componentsSeparatedByString:#"\n"])
If I don't delete the line, the code wouldn't even go into the for loop at all. Nothing was read. How to handle the non-English letters?

Answer 1

If you are generating the text file from within iOS then you need to make sure you are encoding it with NSUTF8StringEncoding. But given the problem you are reporting, I suspect that you may be pulling in data from another source and that source hasn't encoded the text as UTF8. If this is the case, you may be able to fix the problem outside your app but converting the source file to UTF8.
If you don't know what encoding is used, e.g. because the user has supplied the file, iOS can try to guess it for you. A pattern that I have used successfully is to first try to get the string using UTF8 encoding, for example using the same approach you use. Assuming you write a method, to which you pass a filename, to get the string something like the following:
- (NSString*) stringFromFile: (NSString*) filePath;
{
NSError* error = nil;
NSString* stringFromFile = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile: fileName
encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding
error: &error];
if (stringFromFile) return stringFromFile; // success
NSLog(#"String is not UTF8 encoded. Error: %#", [error localizedDescription]);
NSStringEncoding encoding = 0;
NSError* usedEncodingError = nil;
NSString* stringFromFile = [NSString stringWithContentsOfFile: path
usedEncoding: &encoding
error: &usedEncodingError];
if (stringFromFile)
{
NSLog(#"Retrieved string using an alternative encoding. Encoding was: %d", encoding);
return stringFromFile;
}
// either handle error or attempt further explicit unencodings here
return nil;
}
In many cases, usedEncoding works very well. But there are edge cases where trying to figure out an encoding can be very tricky. It all depends on the source file.

Answer 2

I had problem with Japanese characters. My solution was when saving file to doc directory
NSString *fileData = [NSString stringWithFormat:#"%#", noteContent];
BOOL isWriteToFile = [fileData writeToFile:notePath atomically:YES encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding error:nil];
When reading file content
[[NSString alloc] initWithContentsOfFile:fullNotePath usedEncoding:nil error:nil];

Answer 3

In the file, store your data in unicode format or you can also store special character in unicode format.