Sending a string containing special characters through a TcpClient (byte[])

Question

I'm trying to send a string containing special characters through a TcpClient (byte[]). Here's an example:

• Client enters "amé" in a textbox
• Client converts string to byte[] using a certain encoding (I've tried all the predefined ones plus some like "iso-8859-1")
• Client sends byte[] through TCP
• Server receives and outputs the string reconverted with the same encoding (to a listbox)

Edit :

I forgot to mention that the resulting string was "am?".

Edit-2 (as requested, here's some code):

@DJKRAZE here's a bit of code :

byte[] buffer = Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("amé");
(TcpClient)server.Client.Send(buffer);

On the server side:

byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
Client.Recieve(buffer);
string message = Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer);
ListBox1.Items.Add(message);

The string that appears in the listbox is "am?"

=== Solution ===

Encoding encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("iso-8859-1");
byte[] message = encoding.GetBytes("babé");

Update:

Simply using Encoding.Utf8.GetBytes("ééé"); works like a charm.

Answer 1

Never too late to answer a question I think, hope someone will find answers here.

C# uses 16 bit chars, and ASCII truncates them to 8 bit, to fit in a byte. After some research, I found UTF-8 to be the best encoding for special characters.

//data to send via TCP or any stream/file
byte[] string_to_send = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes("amé");

//when receiving, pass the array in this to get the string back
string received_string = UTF8Encoding.UTF8.GetString(message_to_send);

Answer 2

Your problem appears to be the Encoding.ASCII.GetBytes("amé"); and Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer); calls, as hinted at by '500 - Internal Server Error' in his comments.

The é character is a multi-byte character which is encoded in UTF-8 with the byte sequence C3 A9. When you use the Encoding.ASCII class to encode and decode, the é character is converted to a question mark since it does not have a direct ASCII encoding. This is true of any character that has no direct coding in ASCII.

Change your code to use Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes() and Encoding.UTF8.GetString() and it should work for you.