====== VisualBasic .net streamreader encoding ====== Reading text files that don't have default encoding (your system default) can be a pain. Here is how you do it - with full list of encodings Dim SR As System.IO.StreamReader = New StreamReader("in.txt", Encoding.GetEncoding("ibm852")) Dim strtmp As String While Not SR.EndOfStream strtmp = SR.ReadLine() 'Do something with this line End While SR.Close() SR.Dispose() SR = Nothing The this example retrieves the different names for each encoding and compares them with the equivalent Encoding names: Imports System Imports System.Text Public Class SamplesEncoding Public Shared Sub Main() Console.Write("Info.CodePage ") Console.Write("Info.Name ") Console.Write("Info.DisplayName") Console.WriteLine() Dim ei As EncodingInfo For Each ei In Encoding.GetEncodings() Dim e As Encoding = ei.GetEncoding() Console.Write("{0,-15}", ei.CodePage) If ei.CodePage = e.CodePage Then Console.Write(" ") Else Console.Write("*** ") End If Console.Write("{0,-25}", ei.Name) If ei.CodePage = e.CodePage Then Console.Write(" ") Else Console.Write("*** ") End If Console.Write("{0,-25}", ei.DisplayName) If ei.CodePage = e.CodePage Then Console.Write(" ") Else Console.Write("*** ") End If Console.WriteLine() Next ei End Sub End Class 'This code produces the following output. ' 'Info.CodePage Info.Name Info.DisplayName '37 IBM037 IBM EBCDIC (US-Canada) '437 IBM437 OEM United States '500 IBM500 IBM EBCDIC (International) '708 ASMO-708 Arabic (ASMO 708) '720 DOS-720 Arabic (DOS) '737 ibm737 Greek (DOS) '775 ibm775 Baltic (DOS) '850 ibm850 Western European (DOS) '852 ibm852 Central European (DOS) '855 IBM855 OEM Cyrillic '857 ibm857 Turkish (DOS) '858 IBM00858 OEM Multilingual Latin I '860 IBM860 Portuguese (DOS) '861 ibm861 Icelandic (DOS) '862 DOS-862 Hebrew (DOS) '863 IBM863 French Canadian (DOS) '864 IBM864 Arabic (864) '865 IBM865 Nordic (DOS) '866 cp866 Cyrillic (DOS) '869 ibm869 Greek, Modern (DOS) '870 IBM870 IBM EBCDIC (Multilingual Latin-2) '874 windows-874 Thai (Windows) '875 cp875 IBM EBCDIC (Greek Modern) '932 shift_jis Japanese (Shift-JIS) '936 gb2312 Chinese Simplified (GB2312) '949 ks_c_5601-1987 Korean '950 big5 Chinese Traditional (Big5) '1026 IBM1026 IBM EBCDIC (Turkish Latin-5) '1047 IBM01047 IBM Latin-1 '1140 IBM01140 IBM EBCDIC (US-Canada-Euro) '1141 IBM01141 IBM EBCDIC (Germany-Euro) '1142 IBM01142 IBM EBCDIC (Denmark-Norway-Euro) '1143 IBM01143 IBM EBCDIC (Finland-Sweden-Euro) '1144 IBM01144 IBM EBCDIC (Italy-Euro) '1145 IBM01145 IBM EBCDIC (Spain-Euro) '1146 IBM01146 IBM EBCDIC (UK-Euro) '1147 IBM01147 IBM EBCDIC (France-Euro) '1148 IBM01148 IBM EBCDIC (International-Euro) '1149 IBM01149 IBM EBCDIC (Icelandic-Euro) '1200 utf-16 Unicode '1201 unicodeFFFE Unicode (Big-Endian) '1250 windows-1250 Central European (Windows) '1251 windows-1251 Cyrillic (Windows) '1252 Windows-1252 Western European (Windows) '1253 windows-1253 Greek (Windows) '1254 windows-1254 Turkish (Windows) '1255 windows-1255 Hebrew (Windows) '1256 windows-1256 Arabic (Windows) '1257 windows-1257 Baltic (Windows) '1258 windows-1258 Vietnamese (Windows) '1361 Johab Korean (Johab) '10000 macintosh Western European (Mac) '10001 x-mac-japanese Japanese (Mac) '10002 x-mac-chinesetrad Chinese Traditional (Mac) '10003 x-mac-korean Korean (Mac) '10004 x-mac-arabic Arabic (Mac) '10005 x-mac-hebrew Hebrew (Mac) '10006 x-mac-greek Greek (Mac) '10007 x-mac-cyrillic Cyrillic (Mac) '10008 x-mac-chinesesimp Chinese Simplified (Mac) '10010 x-mac-romanian Romanian (Mac) '10017 x-mac-ukrainian Ukrainian (Mac) '10021 x-mac-thai Thai (Mac) '10029 x-mac-ce Central European (Mac) '10079 x-mac-icelandic Icelandic (Mac) '10081 x-mac-turkish Turkish (Mac) '10082 x-mac-croatian Croatian (Mac) '12000 utf-32 Unicode (UTF-32) '12001 utf-32BE Unicode (UTF-32 Big-Endian) '20000 x-Chinese-CNS Chinese Traditional (CNS) '20001 x-cp20001 TCA Taiwan '20002 x-Chinese-Eten Chinese Traditional (Eten) '20003 x-cp20003 IBM5550 Taiwan '20004 x-cp20004 TeleText Taiwan '20005 x-cp20005 Wang Taiwan '20105 x-IA5 Western European (IA5) '20106 x-IA5-German German (IA5) '20107 x-IA5-Swedish Swedish (IA5) '20108 x-IA5-Norwegian Norwegian (IA5) '20127 us-ascii US-ASCII '20261 x-cp20261 T.61 '20269 x-cp20269 ISO-6937 '20273 IBM273 IBM EBCDIC (Germany) '20277 IBM277 IBM EBCDIC (Denmark-Norway) '20278 IBM278 IBM EBCDIC (Finland-Sweden) '20280 IBM280 IBM EBCDIC (Italy) '20284 IBM284 IBM EBCDIC (Spain) '20285 IBM285 IBM EBCDIC (UK) '20290 IBM290 IBM EBCDIC (Japanese katakana) '20297 IBM297 IBM EBCDIC (France) '20420 IBM420 IBM EBCDIC (Arabic) '20423 IBM423 IBM EBCDIC (Greek) '20424 IBM424 IBM EBCDIC (Hebrew) '20833 x-EBCDIC-KoreanExtended IBM EBCDIC (Korean Extended) '20838 IBM-Thai IBM EBCDIC (Thai) '20866 koi8-r Cyrillic (KOI8-R) '20871 IBM871 IBM EBCDIC (Icelandic) '20880 IBM880 IBM EBCDIC (Cyrillic Russian) '20905 IBM905 IBM EBCDIC (Turkish) '20924 IBM00924 IBM Latin-1 '20932 EUC-JP Japanese (JIS 0208-1990 and '0212-1990) '20936 x-cp20936 Chinese Simplified (GB2312-'80) '20949 x-cp20949 Korean Wansung '21025 cp1025 IBM EBCDIC (Cyrillic Serbian-Bulgarian) '21866 koi8-u Cyrillic (KOI8-U) '28591 iso-8859-1 Western European (ISO) '28592 iso-8859-2 Central European (ISO) '28593 iso-8859-3 Latin 3 (ISO) '28594 iso-8859-4 Baltic (ISO) '28595 iso-8859-5 Cyrillic (ISO) '28596 iso-8859-6 Arabic (ISO) '28597 iso-8859-7 Greek (ISO) '28598 iso-8859-8 Hebrew (ISO-Visual) '28599 iso-8859-9 Turkish (ISO) '28603 iso-8859-13 Estonian (ISO) '28605 iso-8859-15 Latin 9 (ISO) '29001 x-Europa Europa '38598 iso-8859-8-i Hebrew (ISO-Logical) '50220 iso-2022-jp Japanese (JIS) '50221 csISO2022JP Japanese (JIS-Allow 1 byte Kana) '50222 iso-2022-jp Japanese (JIS-Allow 1 byte Kana - SO/SI) '50225 iso-2022-kr Korean (ISO) '50227 x-cp50227 Chinese Simplified (ISO-2022) '51932 euc-jp Japanese (EUC) '51936 EUC-CN Chinese Simplified (EUC) '51949 euc-kr Korean (EUC) '52936 hz-gb-2312 Chinese Simplified (HZ) '54936 GB18030 Chinese Simplified (GB18030) '57002 x-iscii-de ISCII Devanagari '57003 x-iscii-be ISCII Bengali '57004 x-iscii-ta ISCII Tamil '57005 x-iscii-te ISCII Telugu '57006 x-iscii-as ISCII Assamese '57007 x-iscii-or ISCII Oriya '57008 x-iscii-ka ISCII Kannada '57009 x-iscii-ma ISCII Malayalam '57010 x-iscii-gu ISCII Gujarati '57011 x-iscii-pa ISCII Punjabi '65000 utf-7 Unicode (UTF-7) '65001 utf-8 Unicode (UTF-8)