csv, xls and utf8 fail

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May 10jloacode4 Comments

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In case u need to save utf8 data to a csv or xls file, mind that those formats do not support utf8 encoding.
Say, u’ve got to save a cyrillic text to a csv file:


// A sample cyrillic, bulgarian text, for exmaple
var utf8String:String = "Аз съм българче. Обичам наште планини зелени...";

// Try to save the file in utf8 charset and then
// open it with Microsoft Excel
var file:FileReference = new FileReference();
file.save(utf8String, "utf8_test.csv");

And here’s the result:

But don’t hurry to google for an as3 charset encoding library, as there’s a simple way to solve this issue:


// A sample cyrillic, bulgarian text, for exmaple
var utf8String:String = "Аз съм българче. Обичам наште планини зелени...";

// csv, xls appear to work only with the ascii
// and windows-like charsets, so as the string is
// cyrillic, we'll use the cyrillic (Windows) charset 'windows-1251'
// which codename's 'x-cp1251' according to the adobe's as3 reference.
var bytes:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
bytes.writeMultiByte(utf8String, "x-cp1251");

var file:FileReference = new FileReference();
file.save(bytes, "cp1251_test.csv");

Now we got the expected result:


Really simple, but still there might be someone who’d need it.