Saving 'tree /f /a" results to a textfile with unicode support

Question

I\'m trying to use the tree command in a windows commandline to generate a text file listing the contents of a directory but when I pipe the output the unicode characters get st

Answer 1

I decided I had to have a look at tree.com and figure out why it's not respecting the Unicode setting of the console. It turns out that (like many of the command-line file utilities), it uses a library called ulib.dll to do all the printing (specifically, TREE::DisplayName calls WriteString in ulib).

Now, in ulib, the WriteString method is implemented in two classes, SCREEN and STREAM. The SCREEN version uses WriteConsoleW directly, so all the Unicode characters get correctly displayed. The STREAM version converts the Unicode text to one of three different encodings (_UseConsoleConversions ⇒ console codepage (GetConsoleCP), _UseAnsiConversions ⇒ default ANSI codepage, otherwise ⇒ default OEM codepage), and then writes this out. I don't know how to change the conversion mode, and I don't believe the conversion can be disabled.

I've only looked at this briefly, so perhaps more adventurous souls can speak more about it! :-)