Inno Setup Pascal Script - Reading UTF-16 file

Question

I have an .inf file exported from Resource Hacker. The file is in UTF-16 LE encoding.

EXTRALARGELEGENDSII_INI TEXTFILE "Data.bin"

LARGEFONTSLEGENDSII_INI TEXTFILE "Data_2.bin"

NORMALLEGENDSII_INI TEXTFILE "Data_3.bin"

THEMES_INI TEXTFILE "Data_4.bin" 

When I load it using the LoadStringFromFile function:

procedure LoadResources;
var
  RESOURCE_INFO: AnsiString;
begin
  LoadStringFromFile(ExpandConstant('{tmp}\SKINRESOURCE - INFO.inf'), RESOURCE_INFO);
  Log(String(RESOURCE_INFO));
end;

I am getting this in the Debug Output:

E

Please tell me how to fix this issue.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

It seems the file you are trying to log is a Windows Unicode (UTF-16LE) Encoded text file.

You can use iConv Command Line and convert your file to Windows UTF-8 Encoded File.

The LoadStringFromFile Support Function does not load Unicode Strings well and it only supports loading ANSI and UTF-8 Encoded Text Files.

Inno Setup Compiler Debug Output stops logging the Text File because it finds a Character it can't load (NULL) and that's why you're getting only "E" in Compiler Debug Output even LoadStringFromFile loads the text file completely.

---

You need to download the Setup Program of the iConv as shown below to get iConv Executable File and some DLLs used to convert between character encoding.

After downloaded, install GnuWin32 (LibIconv for Windows) and go to the installation folder.

Copy following four files inside the sub directory in installation folder called "bin".

They are:

libcharset1.dll

libiconv2.dll

iconv.exe

libintl3.dll

copy these files to the directory where you store files of your Inno Setup Project.

Then use following code to do the Conversion.

[Files]
Source: "libcharset1.dll"; Flags: dontcopy
Source: "iconv.exe"; Flags: dontcopy
Source: "libiconv2.dll"; Flags: dontcopy
Source: "libintl3.dll"; Flags: dontcopy

[Code]
function InitializeSetup(): Boolean
var
  ErrorCode: Integer;
begin
  ExtractTemporaryFile('iconv.exe');
  ExtractTemporaryFile('libcharset1.dll');
  ExtractTemporaryFile('libintl3.dll');
  ExtractTemporaryFile('libiconv2.dll');
  ShellExec('Open', ExpandConstant('CMD.exe'), ExpandConstant('/C iConv -f UTF-16LE -t UTF-8 < SKINRESOURCE-INFO.inf > SKINRESOURCE-INFO-ANSI.inf'), ExpandConstant('{tmp}'), SW_HIDE, ewWaitUntilTerminated, ErrorCode); 
  DeleteFile(ExpandConstant('{tmp}\SKINRESOURCE-INFO.inf')); 

Now LoadStringFromFile should load the text file correctly as now it has the Windows UTF-8 Encoding.

You may also log it after converting it into a Unicode String like Log(String(RESOURCE_INFO)), if you are using Unicode Inno Setup.

Answer 2

The file is in the UTF-16 LE encoding.

The LoadStringFromFile does not support any Unicode encoding. It loads the file as is, to a byte array (the AnsiString is effectively used as a byte array).

As the Unicode string (in Unicode version of Inno Setup) actually uses the UTF-16 LE encoding, all you need to do is to copy the byte array bit-wise to the (Unicode) string. And trim the UTF-16 LE BOM (FEFF).

procedure RtlMoveMemory(Dest: string; Source: PAnsiChar; Len: Integer);
  external 'RtlMoveMemory@kernel32.dll stdcall';

function LoadStringFromUTF16LEFile(FileName: string; var S: string): Boolean;
var
  A: AnsiString;
begin
  Result := LoadStringFromFile(FileName, A);
  if Result then
  begin
    SetLength(S, Length(A) div 2);
    RtlMoveMemory(S, A, Length(S) * 2);
    { Trim BOM, if any }
    if (Length(S) >= 1) and (Ord(S[1]) = $FEFF) then
      Delete(S, 1, 1);
  end;
end;

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See also Inno Setup Reading file in Ansi and Unicode encoding.