C# Convert unicode characters (I think) to regular string

[Bulldog13]

Good afternoon,

I am attempting to read some .pdfs, but instead of getting normal text like usual, I have a stubborn one that is giving me character codes. I think they are unicode but am not 100% sure. I have been digging stackoverflow.com for over an hour and can only find partial answers. I am not even sure I am phrasing the question correctly.

Here is the string the .pdf is giving me.

"\u0001\u0002\u0003\u0004\u0005\u0006\a\u0002\u0003\a\u0003\b\t\n"
"\a\v\u0001\f\v\f\u0004\u0001\a"

I believe Visual Studio is adding the opening and closing quotes since I copy/pasted from the ide.

What format is that and how can you help me get it into a regular text string?

 

[Merad]

C# strings are already unicode strings, using (AFAIK) UTF-16 encoding. I'm fairly sure that pdf files support many different text encodings, so you'll need to look at the documentation for your pdf library for a way to figure out how the text is encoded, then use the tools in .NET's System.Text namespace to do conversions.

 

[Bulldog13]

Any idea what the heck those above strings might be ?

 

[Merad]

Pretty much impossible to tell from that, because that string output is after attempting to interpret it as UTF-16 (I can't remember if it attempts any automatic conversion or not). You need to read the raw data as a byte[], but even then it will be difficult to just look at it and figure out the encoding. I'm not familiar with the pdf file specifications, but if it supports multiple encodings it *has* to have some kind of flag or setting that tells you the current encoding.

 

[sao123]

Those appear to be part of a Stream and is probably binary data.
It may be any type of object... For example if it was preceeded by /Filter/DCTDecode it would be a JPEG object...

http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/pdf-file-format-basic-structure/
https://blog.idrsolutions.com/2013/01/understanding-the-pdf-file-format-overview/