Question

I am reading text from a notepad opened by my program.and this is my code

const int WM_GETTEXT = 0x000D;
const int WM_GETTEXTLENGTH = 0x000E;

[DllImport("User32.dll", EntryPoint = "SendMessage")]
extern static int SendMessageGetTextLength(IntPtr hWnd, int msg, IntPtr wParam,     IntPtr lParam);
[DllImport("User32.dll", EntryPoint = "SendMessage", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
extern static IntPtr SendMessageGetText(IntPtr hWnd, int msg, IntPtr wParam, [Out] StringBuilder lParam);

[DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint = "FindWindowEx")]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr hwndParent, IntPtr hwndChildAfter, string lpszClass, string lpszWindow);

public static string GetText(IntPtr hwnd)
{
    if (hwnd == IntPtr.Zero)
        throw new ArgumentNullException("hwnd");
    IntPtr handler = FindWindowEx(hwnd, new IntPtr(0), "Edit", null);
    int length = SendMessageGetTextLength(handler, WM_GETTEXTLENGTH, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
    if (length > 0 && length < int.MaxValue)
    {
        length++;
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(length);

        SendMessageGetText(handler, WM_GETTEXT, (IntPtr)sb.Length, sb);
        return sb.ToString();
    }
    return String.Empty;
}

It is getting the text but in a special encoding.
For example, if the text entered is ‘hello’ it gets ‘興梀㇨ȿڳㇺ’.
What is the encoding of this text so I can decode it to ASCII?

Answer 1

Your problem is in fact that you are passing sb.Length in the WM_GETTEXT message, when in fact you should be passing sb.Capacity or even just length.

I would do it like this:

if (length > 0 && length < int.MaxValue)
{
    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder(length+1);
    SendMessageGetText(handler, WM_GETTEXT, (IntPtr)length+1, sb);
    return sb.ToString();
}

I’d also point out that WM_GETTEXT will not return more than 64k characters to the length < int.MaxValue isn’t what you need.

---

Of course, in the longer run it may be better to use the Unicode throughout so that you can support international text.

I personally would always opt for using the Unicode APIs and use the following p/invoke declarations:

[DllImport("User32.dll", EntryPoint = "SendMessage", 
    CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = true)]
extern static int SendMessageGetTextLength(IntPtr hWnd, int msg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam);
[DllImport("User32.dll", EntryPoint = "SendMessage",
    CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = true)]
extern static IntPtr SendMessageGetText(IntPtr hWnd, int msg, IntPtr wParam, StringBuilder lParam);
[DllImport("user32.dll", EntryPoint = "FindWindowEx",
    CharSet = CharSet.Unicode, SetLastError = true)]
public static extern IntPtr FindWindowEx(IntPtr hwndParent, IntPtr hwndChildAfter, string lpszClass, string lpszWindow);