Question

Readed about 30 minutes, and didn’t found some specific for this in this site.

Suppose the following, in C#, console application:

ConsoleKeyInfo cki;
cki = Console.ReadKey(true);
Console.WriteLine(cki.KeyChar.ToString()); //Or Console.WriteLine(cki.KeyChar) as well
Console.ReadKey(true);

Now, let’s put ¿ in the console entry, and asign it to cki via a Console.ReadKey(true). What will be shown isn’t the ¿ symbol, the ¨ symbol is the one that’s shown instead. And the same happens with many other characters. Examples: ñ shows ¤, ¡ shows -, ´ shows ï.

Now, let’s take the same code snipplet and add some things for a more Console.ReadLine() like behavior:

string data = string.Empty;
ConsoleKeyInfo cki;
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    cki = Console.ReadKey(true);
    data += cki.KeyChar;
}
Console.WriteLine(data);
Console.ReadKey(true);

The question, how to handle this by the right way, end printing the right characters that should be stored on data, not things like ¨, ¤, -, ï, etc?

Please note that I want a solution that works with ConsoleKeyInfo and Console.ReadKey(), not use other variable types, or read methods.

EDIT:

Because ReadKey() method, that comes from Console namespace, depends on Kernel32.dll and it definetively bad handles the extended ASCII and unicode, it’s not an option anymore to just find a valid conversion for what it returns.

The only valid way to handle the bad behavior of ReadKey() is to use the cki.Key property that’s written in cki = Console.ReadKey(true) execution and apply a switch to it, then, return the right values on dependence of what key was pressed.

For example, to handle the Ñ key pressing:

string data = string.Empty;
ConsoleKeyInfo cki;
cki = Console.ReadKey(true);
switch (cki.Key)
{
    case ConsoleKey.Oem3:
        if (cki.Modifiers.ToString().Contains("Shift")) //Could added handlers for Alt and Control, but not putted in here to keep the code small and simple
            data += "Ñ";
        else
            data += "ñ";
        break;
}
Console.WriteLine(data);
Console.ReadKey(true);

So, now the question has a wider focus… Which others functions completes it’s execution with only one key pressed, and returns what’s pressed (a substitute of ReadKey())? I think that there’s not such substitutes, but a confirmed answer would be usefull.

Answer 1

ReadLine() reconfigures the codepage to use properly the extended ASCII and Unicode characters. ReadKey() leaves it in EN-US default (codepage 850).

Just use a codepage that prints the characters you want, and that’s all. Refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_page for some of them 🙂

So, for the Ñ key press, the solution is this:

Console.OutputEncoding = Encoding.GetEncoding(1252); //Also 28591 is valid for `Ñ` key, and others too
string data = string.Empty;
ConsoleKeyInfo cki;
cki = Console.ReadKey(true);
data += cki.KeyChar;
Console.WriteLine(data);
Console.ReadKey(true);

Simple 🙂

And a side note: in some cases it’s also necessary to reconfigure the Console.InputEncoding property!

Also, note that if you select another font for the console (Lucida Console/Consolas), this trouble STILLS happen. Lotta thanks to user Abel for this, he appointed to the font changing for solution and made myself discover that this is false.