WebClient.DownloadString uses wrong encoding

Question

I'm downloading XML files from sharepoint online using webclient.

However, when I use WebClient.DownloadString(string url) method, some characters are not correctly decoded.

When I use WebClient.DownloadFile(string url, string file) and then I read the file all characters are correct.

The xml itself does not contain encoding declaration.

string wrongXml = webClient.DownloadString(url);
//wrongXml contains Ä™ instead of ę

webClient.DownloadFile(url, @"C:\temp\file1.xml");
string correctXml = File.ReadAllText(@"C:\temp\file1.xml");
//contains ę, like it should.

Also, when open the url in Internet Explorer, it is shown correctly.

Why is that? Is it because of the default windows encoding on my machine or webclient handles responses differently when using DownloadString, resp DownloadFile?

Answer 1

Probably the encoding it is using now is not the one the service returns.

You can set the encoding you expect before you make the request:

webClient.Encoding = Encoding.UTF8;
string previouslyWrongXml = webClient.DownloadString(url);