Special characters problem

[Adrian Eidelman]

I have the following problem:

 

I am getting text ads using Adwords API, some of them include characters such as the pound-character (£) or apostrophes ('). When I get this data, these characters are not displayed correctly (for instance, the pound character looks like this: £)

 

I have seen other posts where they talk about UTF encoding, however I am not sure how to fix the problem. I am using the API through .NET.

 

Any idea ?

 

Thanks in advance,

Adrian

[adrian....@gmail.com]

To add some information to my previous post, I have found this problem
while downloading csv files from the Google AdWords site also. We have
created a Keyword report from the site, and the pound characters are
also shown as £. I guess that this problem is not related to the app
we are building then.

Someone from Google can give me some information about that ?

Thanks a lot,
Adrian

[MikeyB]

I am sure it has to do with your encoding.

Make sure u use utf-8. I had the same problem with multibyte
characters. My problem was in the connection with the database. I was
using a latin charset. By changing the connection settings to utf-8
solved the problem.

In case you are using files for input, make sure they are UTF-8 or
convert the characters from a ISO charset to UTF-8.

Good luck,

On Jul 6, 5:20 pm, "adrian.eidel...@gmail.com"

[MikeyB]

I am sure it's in your application or envi. Had the same problem. You
are using an other charset than the UTF-8 unicode charset.

The pound sign is a double byte character in UTF-8. It exists out of 2
bytes the first one hex (0xC2) and the second one (0xA3) if i recall
correct.

For example if you use ISO-8859-1 (single bytes) it will output each
character as an individual
0xc2 = Â
0xa3 = £
source(http://www.fileformat.info/info/charset/ISO-8859-1/grid.htm)

If UTF-8 single or multibyte characters are wrapped to 1 readable
character
0xC2 0xA3 = £
source(http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/block/latin_supplement/
utf8test.htm)

I hope you get it now, change your encoding/locale to utf-8 check you
connection setting to your databases are utf-8 and check if you have
enough coffee

Let me know if you find the problem or need more help.

Greets,
Michael Boke

[adrian....@gmail.com]

Thank you very much Michael. I suspected it was something related to
the xml encoding, however I haven't been able to figure out where I
can change to UTF-8 charset. I am accessing the API through .NET.

If you have any clue I'll really appreciate it !

Thanks again,
Adrian

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[MikeyB]

So far i know SOAP handling in .NETis already done in UTF-8. Try some
of the encoding functions/namespaces will work?.

By the way is it not only a display problem. If you output UTF-8 data
to a iso-charset /ascii console it wil displayed incorrect anyway. A
simple case is to store the adwords response in a document in UTF-8
and open it with a UTF-8 capable editor. If the characters are
displayed correct then u are 99% sure it works correct. Or u try to
add a campaign with multi byte characters to adwords. Check in you
client center if the campaign is correctly displayed.

Much further i can't help you with my limited knowledge of .NET

Greets
Michael Boke

On Jul 11, 4:26 pm, "adrian.eidel...@gmail.com"

[adrian....@gmail.com]

I think you are right Michael, thank you very much. Apparently it has
to do with Excel and CSV files encoding.

You were really very helpful.

Regards,
Adrian

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