Re: String encoding question

[Fred Kiefer]

Björn Giesler wrote:
> I'm trying to read vcard files (example attached) exported from Apple's Address 
> Book application. I have to use [NSString initWithData:encoding:] on the file 
> contents, because that's what Apple's interface specifies.
>
> I've got no idea which encoding these things are in... they look like unicode, because 
> there are two bytes for each character, but when I use NSUnicodeStringEncoding, the 
> result is garbage (when dumped with NSLog()). When I use NSAsciiStringEncoding, NSLog() 
> prints the contents just fine, but the resulting string keeps the extra bytes ([str 
> length] returns 22 for "BEGIN:VCARD"), so I can't parse the file properly.
>
> Any ideas? I'm thoroughly lost with this encoding stuff.

Not sure what you did try, but the following code works for me:

#include <Foundation/NSAutoreleasePool.h>
#include <Foundation/NSData.h>
#include <Foundation/NSString.h>

int main (int argc, const char *argv[])
{
  NSData *data;
  NSString *string;
  CREATE_AUTORELEASE_POOL(pool);

  data = [NSData dataWithContentsOfFile:
                     [@"~/GNUstep/HeinzSchenk.vcf" 
stringByExpandingTildeInPath]];
  string = [[NSString alloc] initWithData: data
                             encoding: NSUnicodeStringEncoding];
  NSLog(@"Did read: %@", string);
  RELEASE(string);
  RELEASE(pool);
  return 0;
}