How can I detect the encoding/codepage of a text file

Question

In our application, we receive text files (.txt, .csv, etc.) from diverse sources. When reading, these files sometimes contain garbage, because the

Answer 1

I was actually looking for a generic, not programming way of detecting the file encoding, but I didn't find that yet. What I did find by testing with different encodings was that my text was UTF-7.

So where I first was doing: StreamReader file = File.OpenText(fullfilename);

I had to change it to: StreamReader file = new StreamReader(fullfilename, System.Text.Encoding.UTF7);

OpenText assumes it's UTF-8.

you can also create the StreamReader like this new StreamReader(fullfilename, true), the second parameter meaning that it should try and detect the encoding from the byteordermark of the file, but that didn't work in my case.