tc756a: wincmd.ini in utf-8 problem with first line

Post by *white » 2011-03-06, 19:49 UTC

I noticed my Total Commander was not working correctly. I found out it was because wincmd.ini was in utf-8 and Total Commander did not interpret the first line correctly.

Try this:

In a folder of your choice create a file called wincmd.ini with the following contents:

Code: Select all

[Configuration]
SeparateTree=1

Save the file in utf-8 format
Run Total Commander using command line option /I to use the wincmd.ini file created earlier
No separate tree is displayed
Close Total Commander
Open the wincmd.ini file created earlier
An extra [Configuration] section has been added

If you add an empty line at the beginning the problem does not occur.

Code: Select all

[Configuration]
SeparateTree=1

sqa_wizard · Post by *sqa_wizard » 2011-03-06, 20:11 UTC

Sorry, I tried it but it works fine. [WinXP german]

Tried utf-8 with:
CRLF at the end of each line
Just one CRLF after first line

LF at the end of each line
Just one LF after first line

Separate tree was shown in each case.

sqa_wizard · Post by *sqa_wizard » 2011-03-06, 20:13 UTC

One more idea: Do you save a utf-8 file with BOM ?

sqa_wizard · Post by *sqa_wizard » 2011-03-06, 20:26 UTC

Well, I can reproduce it now, using a utf-8 formatted file with BOM.

The (hidden) BOM prefix at the first line seems to inhibit a detection of the section header.

Post by *white » 2011-03-06, 21:04 UTC

sqa_wizard wrote:One more idea: Do you save a utf-8 file with BOM ?

Well, saving without BOM would result in the same file as when saving as ANSI now would it?

sqa_wizard wrote:Well, I can reproduce it now, using a utf-8 formatted file with BOM.

The (hidden) BOM prefix at the first line seems to inhibit a detection of the section header.

Yes, thanks for confirming.

Post by *petermad » 2011-03-06, 23:09 UTC

Well, saving without BOM would result in the same file as when saving as ANSI now would it

Only if the file is 7-bit ansi. If there are 8-bit ansi characters they will be saved differently when saved as ansi than when saved as utf8 (with or without bom).

MVV · Post by *MVV » 2011-03-07, 09:32 UTC

white, wincmd.ini (and all other TC's INI and BAR files) can't be in UTF-8. Windows doesn't support UTF-8 for INI files. If you want Unicode, save file in UCS-16 (called just Unicode in Notepad) - all will work.

I think BOM for UTF-8 may cause your errors because Windows doesn't expect to see it in INI file.

Post by *white » 2011-03-07, 09:44 UTC

MVV wrote:white, wincmd.ini (and all other TC's INI and BAR files) can't be in UTF-8. Windows doesn't support UTF-8 for INI files. If you want Unicode, save file in UCS-16 (called just Unicode in Notepad) - all will work.

I think BOM for UTF-8 may cause your errors because Windows doesn't expect to see it in INI file.

It wasn't my choice to store it in UTF-8..

I noticed as soon as Total Commander wants to store some unicode characters in the ini, my ANSI ini is changed into UTF-8.

Post by *ghisler(Author) » 2011-03-07, 16:01 UTC

It's unfortunately a limitation of the Windows functions to read ini files. They see the BOM at the beginning of the first line instead of square brackets, and therefore ignore it.

Post by *white » 2011-03-07, 16:56 UTC

white wrote:It wasn't my choice to store it in UTF-8..

I noticed as soon as Total Commander wants to store some unicode characters in the ini, my ANSI ini is changed into UTF-8.

I think I made a mistake somewhere because I cannot reproduce it anymore. Maybe I did save the ini as utf-8 at some time and forgot about it.