C# or VB.NET: How to programatically change encoding format to UTF-8 of all text files in a given directory?

Question

I am trying to loop through a directory and for ever text file that I find, convert the encoding to UTF-8 Fromat.

If you just want to get the job done, use existing tools such as iconv. If you want to write such a tool yourself, tell us what you have tried and where you are stuck. — Heinzi
– Heinzi, Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:33
This isn't very likely to come to a good end. The task implies that the text files are in an unknown encoding right now. Which means you don't know how to reliably read them. — Hans Passant
– Hans Passant, Commented Feb 8, 2011 at 16:59

Xavier Egea · Accepted Answer · 2015-12-29 12:01:39Z

2

Use DirectoryInfo and you're pretty much done

DirectoryInfo DI = new DirectoryInfo("TextFiles_Path");
FileInfo[] Files = DI.GetFiles("*.txt");
foreach(FileInfo Fl in Files)
{
    StreamReader SR = Fl.OpenText(); //This opens a stream to the file **in UTF8 encoding**
    StreamWriter SW = new StreamWriter(new FileStream(Fl.FullName + ".UTF8.txt", FileMode.OpenOrCreate), Encoding.UTF8);
    SW.Write(SR.ReadToEnd());
}

Enjoy

edited Dec 29, 2015 at 12:01

Xavier Egea

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answered Feb 8, 2011 at 16:34

Machinarius

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4 Comments

William Over a year ago

Do you know if i need anything aside from using system.io? i am getting errors

William Over a year ago

File[] Files = DI.GetFiles("*.txt"); Error 1 Cannot implicitly convert type 'System.IO.FileInfo[]' to 'System.IO.File[]'

Machinarius Over a year ago

Sorry, edited so it uses the constructor that takes an encoding as parameter

Siraf Over a year ago

I tried the code but it didn't work, the reason is simple, the OpenText() method reads the file content as UTF-8, this is the error in the code! if the file was saved with Windows-1252 encoding and you read its contents using OpenText() then characters are interpreted in a wrong way!

Furqan Safdar · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-19 16:53:55Z

2

Fast and easy

For Each oFile In IO.Directory.GetFiles(dir, "*.*", IO.SearchOption.AllDirectories)
    IO.File.WriteAllText(oFile, IO.File.ReadAllText(oFile), Encoding.UTF8)
Next

edited Nov 19, 2012 at 16:53

Furqan Safdar

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answered Nov 19, 2012 at 16:34

AdelGh

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2 Comments

Czeshirecat Over a year ago

Very nice quick option :) Unfortunately this doesn't work if the source file is in ANSI encoding which is the problem that brought me here. Any accented characters will become corrupted.

Siraf Over a year ago

of course! because the ReadAllText method reads the content as UTF-8, so if you read the content of a none UTF-8 file as UTF-8 you will get a read error, saving the file after that in UTF-8 doesn't help

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