Convert a string to a utf8 string

Question

I'm trying to convert a string like

<Root>á</Root>

To it's UTF string representation, like this

<Root>Ã¡</Root>

(Taken from this page: http://www.cafewebmaster.com/online_tools/utf8_encode)

But when I issue Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(str) I get an array of utf bytes.

How can I convert those bytes to the string representation I'm after?

--

Thanks for pointing that there is no string representation of an utf8 string.

Just to clarify my needs, I have to execute something like this in sql 2008:

xmlAuditoria_Alta 
'
<Out>utf8 char: Ã¡</Out>
'

This is the only way I found so far to have this stored precedure correctly save the value

utf8 char: á

That's why I'm trying to convert from á to Ã¡

Perhaps there's a more correct way to do it

There is no such thing as a "UTF string representation". Ã¡ is what happens when you incorrectly parse UTF8 bytes as a single-byte encoding. You should not do that. — SLaks
– SLaks, Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 19:59
For what it is worth, taken at face value the answer to your question is: Encoding _1252 = new Encoding(1252); // or whatever single byte encoding you desire byte[] utf8 = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(str); string mangledStr = _1252.GetString(utf8); But I am positive that you do not ever want to do this! — David Heffernan
– David Heffernan, Commented Jan 10, 2014 at 20:04

David Heffernan · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-10 19:59:58Z

8

Your question is based on an erroneous premise.

<Root>Ã¡</Root>

is not the UTF-8 representation of your string. In fact that string is the UTF-8 bytes re-interpreted in some other single-byte 8 bit character set.

If you want to convert a C# string to UTF-8 then you do indeed write:

Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(str)

answered Jan 10, 2014 at 19:59

David Heffernan

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1 Comment

Alexei Levenkov Over a year ago

+1. Also default encoding for XML is UTF-8 already, so there is a good chance that simply saving XML to stream will produce expected result (instead of direct string manipulation).

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