Question

How to decode HTML to CSV with user default encoding? Every Response.ContentEncoding I use exports gibberish.

SQL to Grid:

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString);                
string select = "SELECT...";
SqlDataAdapter DataCommand = new SqlDataAdapter(select, conn);
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
DataCommand.Fill(ds);
GridView1.DataSource = ds.Tables[0].DefaultView;
GridView1.DataBind();

Grid to CSV:

Response.Clear();
Response.Buffer = true;
Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename=CSVfile.csv");
Response.ContentType = "text/csv";
// other encoding like utf-8 also exports encoded data
Response.ContentEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("Windows-1250"); 

StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();      
for (int i = 0; i < GridView1.Rows.Count; i++)
{
    for (int k = 0; k < GridView1.Rows[0].Cells.Count; k++)
    {
        sb.Append(GridView1.Rows[i].Cells[k].Text + ';');
    }
    sb.Append("\r\n");
}
Response.Output.Write(sb.ToString());
Response.Flush()
Response.End();

SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS data is displayed correctly as “Windows CP-1250” in Grid, however the CSV contains all the HTML encoded characters (ó instead of ó etc., same as in HTML source of grid). I’m totally lost with this encoding right now…

Answer 1

The special characters you are seeing are not content encoded, they are HTML encoded. You need to HTML decode the string first.

Try changing:

Response.Output.Write(sb.ToString()); 

to

Response.Output.Write(HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(sb.ToString()));

Be aware that you might want to do this line-by-line for very large strings

(i.e. HTML decode the CSV out line by line):

sb.Append(HttpUtility.HtmlDecode(GridView1.Rows[i].Cells[k].Text) + ';');