BinaryReader/Writer Encoding

Question

Hi all,

Currently having some issues with encoding when using binarywriter and the way it handles accented characters. I can read in without any issues.

This what I am currently doing:

System.IO.FileStream input = System.IO.File.Open(this.path, System.IO.FileMode.Open);

System.IO.BinaryReader binaryReader = new System.IO.BinaryReader(input, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8);

//

//

//

int nameVol = binaryReader.ReadInt32();

string text2x = string.Empty;

this.names = new System.Collections.Generic.List<Names>();

while (j < nameVol)

{

byte b = binaryReader.ReadByte();

if (b == 0)

{

offset = j;

}

if (b != 0)

{

text2x += (char)b;

}

else

{

int nOffset = (offset - text2x.Length);

names.Add(new Names { name = text2x, offset = nOffset });

text2x = string.Empty;

}

j++;

}

This is fine, it works well and populates my list.

Within my list I have names with accents, again these display correct.

For example it could show Sébastian . Again, all good!

When I come to writing names out I do something like this:

System.IO.FileStream output = System.IO.File.OpenWrite(exportPath);

System.IO.BinaryWriter binaryWriter = new System.IO.BinaryWriter(output);

//

//

//

foreach (Name n in this.names)

{

sNames.Write(binaryWriter);

}

Which does:

public void Write(System.IO.BinaryWriter writer)

{

int nameLength = this.Name.Length;

int lengthdiff = 128 - nameLength;

int totallength = nameLength + lengthdiff;

byte[] arr2 = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(this.Name.PadRight(totallength, '\0'));

writer.Write(arr2);

}

It doesn't error.

The issue is the way it writes out accented characters.

As looking at the output Sébastian writes out as:

Sébastien

I have tried using BOMUTF8 without any joy, I have tried ASCII.

What does work is using codepage 1252 or Default, and while default is fine for my machine, if someones globalization settings are different (e.g. Asian countries) default won't work. 

Also I want to get away with NOT using codepage 1252, call it a pre-requisit!

Any help what I am doing wrong?