Vietnamese character in .NET Console Application (

Question

I'm trying to write down a UTF-8 string (Vietnamese) into C# Console but no success. I'm running on Windows 7.

I tried to use the Encoding class that convert string to char[] to byte[] and then to String, but no help, the string is input directly from the database.

Here is some example

Tôi tên là Đức, cuộc sống thật vui vẻ tuyệt vời

It does not show the special character like Đ or ứ... instead it show up ?, much worse than with the Encoding class.

Does anyone can try this out or know about this problem?

---

My code

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    XDataContext _new = new XDataContext();
    Console.OutputEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("UTF-8");
    string srcString = _new.Posts.First().TITLE;

    Console.WriteLine(srcString);
    // Convert the UTF-16 encoded source string to UTF-8 and ASCII.
    byte[] utf8String = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(srcString);
    byte[] asciiString = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes(srcString);

    // Write the UTF-8 and ASCII encoded byte arrays. 
    Console.WriteLine("UTF-8  Bytes: {0}", BitConverter.ToString(utf8String));
    Console.WriteLine("ASCII  Bytes: {0}", BitConverter.ToString(asciiString));


    // Convert UTF-8 and ASCII encoded bytes back to UTF-16 encoded  
    // string and write.
    Console.WriteLine("UTF-8  Text : {0}", Encoding.UTF8.GetString(utf8String));
    Console.WriteLine("ASCII  Text : {0}", Encoding.ASCII.GetString(asciiString));

    Console.WriteLine(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(utf8String));
    Console.WriteLine(Encoding.ASCII.GetString(asciiString));
}

and here is the outstanding output

Nhà báo đi hội báo Xuân
UTF-8  Bytes: 4E-68-C3-A0-20-62-C3-A1-6F-20-C4-91-69-20-68-E1-BB-99-69-20-62-C3-
A1-6F-20-58-75-C3-A2-6E
ASCII  Bytes: 4E-68-3F-20-62-3F-6F-20-3F-69-20-68-3F-69-20-62-3F-6F-20-58-75-3F-
6E
UTF-8  Text : Nhà báo đi hội báo Xuân
ASCII  Text : Nh? b?o ?i h?i b?o Xu?n
Nhà báo đi hội báo Xuân
Nh? b?o ?i h?i b?o Xu?n


Press any key to continue . . .

Answer 1

You will need to set Console.OutputEncoding to match UTF-8.

Probably something like:

Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;

Answer 2

it is the problem with cmd.exe console. It doesn't support unicode. [Nothing to do with C#/.NET]

Try changing it to a GUI app if you can or write to a file.

Answer 3

Does the font you use in the Console window support the characters you are trying to display?

Answer 4

class Program
{
    [DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
    static extern bool SetConsoleOutputCP(uint wCodePageID);

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        SetConsoleOutputCP(65001);
        Console.OutputEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;
        Console.WriteLine("tést, тест, τεστ, ←↑→↓∏∑√∞①②③④, Bài viết chọn lọc");
        Console.ReadLine();
    }
}

Screenshot of the output (use Consolas or another font that has all the above characters):