Writing text files - phantom characters

I am working on a custom component that writes strings to a text file, line by line, in order to run simulations in a thid-party analysis program. When the text files are opened in the analysis program, they contain phantom characters that cause the file to be unreadable. Can anyone help with this issue?

Thanks!

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on August 4, 2014 at 11:19pm

What's a phantom character? How are you writing these textfiles?

Permalink Reply by dorvieto on August 5, 2014 at 4:53am

I have attached a screenshot of the problem. A colleague was attempting to use the text file in the analysis software but saw these strange characters in the file. The program I am creating the file for requires specific formatting, so I am trying to write the file line by line. To write the file, I have used code like the following:

Dim LineCount As Integer

Dim TextLine(200) As String

TextLine(0) = ("{").Trim()

TextLine(1) = ("""" + "Project" + """" + ":" + " {").Trim()

TextLine(2) = ("""" + "FileName" + """" + ":" + " """ + Filename.ToString + ".hcnc" + """" + ",").Trim()

And so on for about 100 lines.

Attachments:

UnknowCharacter.png, 9 KB

Permalink Reply by Danny Boyes on August 5, 2014 at 5:15am

I don't pretend to know anything about this subject but it would appear to be a BOM character.

There is a Stackoverflow question about removing it here

Permalink Reply by dorvieto on August 5, 2014 at 5:35am

I have found a VB.net example (http://whatilearnttuday.blogspot.com/2011/10/write-text-files-witho...) and tried the fix they suggest, but the analysis program still will not read it. Is there something different about the way GH components create text files that could be causing this?

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