XML File Changes Encoding problems ... UTF-8 becomes UTF-16

[Jizzle2000]

Project Type: Basic MSI in InstallShield Professional 11.5

I've recently been making some nifty changes to XML files and the elements of different attributes. I thought everything was working great, but then I just noticed that my app isn't starting and it's because the encoding value of the xml file is being changed from UTF-8 to UTF-16. Does anyone know if there's a way to define this anywhere in InstallShield? Thanks.

[Gwynbleid]

I have also used XML File Changes IS option to modify web.config file according to the user input, and my application started without any problem afterwards. Is this what you are talking about?

[Jizzle2000]

Alright, so here's the deal. When I modify a file that's encoded in UTF-8 on the user's computer IS changes the encoding to UTF-16. Not just the value in the xml file but the entire file is also changed to UTF-16 encoding. Is this the default of IS? Is there a way to change what IS encodes any xml file changes as? And does anyone know what the heck I'm talking about? In any case, if you don't know what I'm talking about try making an xml file change to a xml file that's encoded in UTF-8 and then look at it's encoding after IS changes the file. Thanks for any help I get...


The lack of documentation is astounding...shouldn't default values for things like this be stated somewhere...like the user guide? If people don't understand the importance of keeping a file's encoding as-is and not to mess with it somewhere (like in IS) then there's problem with whoever's writing code to modify xml files.

[bryanwolf]

The XML Encoding issue is actually an unexpected behavior. We made some significant changes to the XML File Changes view between IS 11 and 11.5 to make it more functional and feature-rich as I'm sure you have noticed. In doing so, we are encountering an issue with the MSXML component that we call into to make the XML File Changes view work correctly. For some reason, it seems like MSXML wants the files to be in UTF-16 encoding format and the switch is occuring somewhere in there. Currently, this still being looked into and no resolution has been posted quite yet. However, we are aware of this issue and have submitted it with Issue number IOC-000044312.

[Jizzle2000]

Sounds good bryanwolf. I'm glad you're aware of it. A work around I've encountered would be to create an XSL Transform with the following code at the top of it:

<xsl:stylesheet xmlns:xsl="http://www.w3.org/1999/XSL/Transform"
     version="1.0">
<xsl:output method="xml" omit-xml-declaration="no" encoding="UTF-8"/>

This along with some other basic transform code will change the xml file's encoding by essentially reading it in and writing it out in the correct encoding. Perhaps a similar solution embedded into the XML File Changes dll would do the trick. It's probably been thought of but it's just an idea. Thanks for your response on this issue.