Encoding Class

Definition

Namespace:

System.Text

Assembly:

System.Runtime.dll

Represents a character encoding.

public ref class Encoding abstract : ICloneable

public abstract class Encoding : ICloneable

type Encoding = class
    interface ICloneable

Public MustInherit Class Encoding
Implements ICloneable

Inheritance

Object

Encoding

Derived

System.Text.ASCIIEncoding

System.Text.UnicodeEncoding

System.Text.UTF32Encoding

System.Text.UTF7Encoding

System.Text.UTF8Encoding

Implements

ICloneable

Examples

The following example converts a string from one encoding to another.

Note

The byte[] array is the only type in this example that contains the encoded data. The .NET Char and String types are themselves Unicode, so the GetChars call decodes the data back to Unicode.

using namespace System;
using namespace System::Text;

int main()
{
   String^ unicodeString = "This string contains the unicode character Pi (\u03a0)";
   
   // Create two different encodings.
   Encoding^ ascii = Encoding::ASCII;
   Encoding^ unicode = Encoding::Unicode;
   
   // Convert the string into a byte array.
   array<Byte>^unicodeBytes = unicode->GetBytes( unicodeString );
   
   // Perform the conversion from one encoding to the other.
   array<Byte>^asciiBytes = Encoding::Convert( unicode, ascii, unicodeBytes );
   
   // Convert the new Byte into[] a char and[] then into a string.
   array<Char>^asciiChars = gcnew array<Char>(ascii->GetCharCount( asciiBytes, 0, asciiBytes->Length ));
   ascii->GetChars( asciiBytes, 0, asciiBytes->Length, asciiChars, 0 );
   String^ asciiString = gcnew String( asciiChars );
   
   // Display the strings created before and after the conversion.
   Console::WriteLine( "Original String*: {0}", unicodeString );
   Console::WriteLine( "Ascii converted String*: {0}", asciiString );
}
// The example displays the following output:
//    Original string: This string contains the unicode character Pi (Π)
//    Ascii converted string: This string contains the unicode character Pi (?)

using System;
using System.Text;

class Example
{
   static void Main()
   {
      string unicodeString = "This string contains the unicode character Pi (\u03a0)";

      // Create two different encodings.
      Encoding ascii = Encoding.ASCII;
      Encoding unicode = Encoding.Unicode;

      // Convert the string into a byte array.
      byte[] unicodeBytes = unicode.GetBytes(unicodeString);

      // Perform the conversion from one encoding to the other.
      byte[] asciiBytes = Encoding.Convert(unicode, ascii, unicodeBytes);
         
      // Convert the new byte[] into a char[] and then into a string.
      char[] asciiChars = new char[ascii.GetCharCount(asciiBytes, 0, asciiBytes.Length)];
      ascii.GetChars(asciiBytes, 0, asciiBytes.Length, asciiChars, 0);
      string asciiString = new string(asciiChars);

      // Display the strings created before and after the conversion.
      Console.WriteLine("Original string: {0}", unicodeString);
      Console.WriteLine("Ascii converted string: {0}", asciiString);
   }
}
// The example displays the following output:
//    Original string: This string contains the unicode character Pi (Π)
//    Ascii converted string: This string contains the unicode character Pi (?)

Imports System.Text

Class Example
   Shared Sub Main()
      Dim unicodeString As String = "This string contains the unicode character Pi (" & ChrW(&H03A0) & ")"

      ' Create two different encodings.
      Dim ascii As Encoding = Encoding.ASCII
      Dim unicode As Encoding = Encoding.Unicode

      ' Convert the string into a byte array.
      Dim unicodeBytes As Byte() = unicode.GetBytes(unicodeString)

      ' Perform the conversion from one encoding to the other.
      Dim asciiBytes As Byte() = Encoding.Convert(unicode, ascii, unicodeBytes)

      ' Convert the new byte array into a char array and then into a string.
      Dim asciiChars(ascii.GetCharCount(asciiBytes, 0, asciiBytes.Length)-1) As Char
      ascii.GetChars(asciiBytes, 0, asciiBytes.Length, asciiChars, 0)
      Dim asciiString As New String(asciiChars)

      ' Display the strings created before and after the conversion.
      Console.WriteLine("Original string: {0}", unicodeString)
      Console.WriteLine("Ascii converted string: {0}", asciiString)
   End Sub
End Class
' The example displays the following output:
'    Original string: This string contains the unicode character Pi (Π)
'    Ascii converted string: This string contains the unicode character Pi (?)

Remarks

Encoding is the process of transforming a set of Unicode characters into a sequence of bytes. In contrast, decoding is the process of transforming a sequence of encoded bytes into a set of Unicode characters. For information about the Unicode Transformation Formats (UTFs) and other encodings supported by Encoding, see Character Encoding in .NET.

Note that Encoding is intended to operate on Unicode characters instead of arbitrary binary data, such as byte arrays. If you must encode arbitrary binary data into text, you should use a protocol such as uuencode, which is implemented by methods such as Convert.ToBase64CharArray.

.NET provides the following implementations of the Encoding class to support current Unicode encodings and other encodings:

• ASCIIEncoding encodes Unicode characters as single 7-bit ASCII characters. This encoding only supports character values between U+0000 and U+007F. Code page 20127. Also available through the ASCII property.

• UTF7Encoding encodes Unicode characters using the UTF-7 encoding. This encoding supports all Unicode character values. Code page 65000. Also available through the UTF7 property.

• UTF8Encoding encodes Unicode characters using the UTF-8 encoding. This encoding supports all Unicode character values. Code page 65001. Also available through the UTF8 property.

• UnicodeEncoding encodes Unicode characters using the UTF-16 encoding. Both little endian and big endian byte orders are supported. Also available through the Unicode property and the BigEndianUnicode property.

• UTF32Encoding encodes Unicode characters using the UTF-32 encoding. Both little endian (code page 12000) and big endian (code page 12001) byte orders are supported. Also available through the UTF32 property.

The Encoding class is primarily intended to convert between different encodings and Unicode. Often one of the derived Unicode classes is the correct choice for your app.

Use the GetEncoding method to obtain other encodings, and call the GetEncodings method to get a list of all encodings.

List of encodings

The following table lists the encodings supported by .NET. It lists each encoding's code page number and the values of the encoding's EncodingInfo.Name and EncodingInfo.DisplayName properties. A check mark in the .NET Framework support, .NET Core support, or .NET 5 and later support column indicates that the code page is natively supported by that .NET implementation, regardless of the underlying platform. For .NET Framework, the availability of other encodings listed in the table depends on the operating system. For .NET Core and .NET 5 and later versions, other encodings are available by using the System.Text.CodePagesEncodingProvider class or by deriving from the System.Text.EncodingProvider class.

Note

Code pages whose EncodingInfo.Name property corresponds to an international standard do not necessarily comply in full with that standard.

Code page	Name	Display name	.NET Framework support	.NET Core support	.NET 5 and later support
37	IBM037	IBM EBCDIC (US-Canada)
437	IBM437	OEM United States
500	IBM500	IBM EBCDIC (International)
708	ASMO-708	Arabic (ASMO 708)
720	DOS-720	Arabic (DOS)
737	ibm737	Greek (DOS)
775	ibm775	Baltic (DOS)
850	ibm850	Western European (DOS)
852	ibm852	Central European (DOS)
855	IBM855	OEM Cyrillic
857	ibm857	Turkish (DOS)
858	IBM00858	OEM Multilingual Latin I
860	IBM860	Portuguese (DOS)
861	ibm861	Icelandic (DOS)
862	DOS-862	Hebrew (DOS)
863	IBM863	French Canadian (DOS)
864	IBM864	Arabic (864)
865	IBM865	Nordic (DOS)
866	cp866	Cyrillic (DOS)
869	ibm869	Greek, Modern (DOS)
870	IBM870	IBM EBCDIC (Multilingual Latin-2)
874	windows-874	Thai (Windows)
875	cp875	IBM EBCDIC (Greek Modern)
932	shift_jis	Japanese (Shift-JIS)
936	gb2312	Chinese Simplified (GB2312)	✓
949	ks_c_5601-1987	Korean
950	big5	Chinese Traditional (Big5)
1026	IBM1026	IBM EBCDIC (Turkish Latin-5)
1047	IBM01047	IBM Latin-1
1140	IBM01140	IBM EBCDIC (US-Canada-Euro)
1141	IBM01141	IBM EBCDIC (Germany-Euro)
1142	IBM01142	IBM EBCDIC (Denmark-Norway-Euro)
1143	IBM01143	IBM EBCDIC (Finland-Sweden-Euro)
1144	IBM01144	IBM EBCDIC (Italy-Euro)
1145	IBM01145	IBM EBCDIC (Spain-Euro)
1146	IBM01146	IBM EBCDIC (UK-Euro)
1147	IBM01147	IBM EBCDIC (France-Euro)
1148	IBM01148	IBM EBCDIC (International-Euro)
1149	IBM01149	IBM EBCDIC (Icelandic-Euro)
1200	utf-16	Unicode	✓	✓	✓
1201	unicodeFFFE	Unicode (Big endian)	✓	✓	✓
1250	windows-1250	Central European (Windows)
1251	windows-1251	Cyrillic (Windows)
1252	Windows-1252	Western European (Windows)	✓
1253	windows-1253	Greek (Windows)
1254	windows-1254	Turkish (Windows)
1255	windows-1255	Hebrew (Windows)
1256	windows-1256	Arabic (Windows)
1257	windows-1257	Baltic (Windows)
1258	windows-1258	Vietnamese (Windows)
1361	Johab	Korean (Johab)
10000	macintosh	Western European (Mac)
10001	x-mac-japanese	Japanese (Mac)
10002	x-mac-chinesetrad	Chinese Traditional (Mac)
10003	x-mac-korean	Korean (Mac)	✓
10004	x-mac-arabic	Arabic (Mac)
10005	x-mac-hebrew	Hebrew (Mac)
10006	x-mac-greek	Greek (Mac)
10007	x-mac-cyrillic	Cyrillic (Mac)
10008	x-mac-chinesesimp	Chinese Simplified (Mac)	✓
10010	x-mac-romanian	Romanian (Mac)
10017	x-mac-ukrainian	Ukrainian (Mac)
10021	x-mac-thai	Thai (Mac)
10029	x-mac-ce	Central European (Mac)
10079	x-mac-icelandic	Icelandic (Mac)
10081	x-mac-turkish	Turkish (Mac)
10082	x-mac-croatian	Croatian (Mac)
12000	utf-32	Unicode (UTF-32)	✓	✓	✓
12001	utf-32BE	Unicode (UTF-32 Big endian)	✓	✓	✓
20000	x-Chinese-CNS	Chinese Traditional (CNS)
20001	x-cp20001	TCA Taiwan
20002	x-Chinese-Eten	Chinese Traditional (Eten)
20003	x-cp20003	IBM5550 Taiwan
20004	x-cp20004	TeleText Taiwan
20005	x-cp20005	Wang Taiwan
20105	x-IA5	Western European (IA5)
20106	x-IA5-German	German (IA5)
20107	x-IA5-Swedish	Swedish (IA5)
20108	x-IA5-Norwegian	Norwegian (IA5)
20127	us-ascii	US-ASCII	✓	✓	✓
20261	x-cp20261	T.61
20269	x-cp20269	ISO-6937
20273	IBM273	IBM EBCDIC (Germany)
20277	IBM277	IBM EBCDIC (Denmark-Norway)
20278	IBM278	IBM EBCDIC (Finland-Sweden)
20280	IBM280	IBM EBCDIC (Italy)
20284	IBM284	IBM EBCDIC (Spain)
20285	IBM285	IBM EBCDIC (UK)
20290	IBM290	IBM EBCDIC (Japanese katakana)
20297	IBM297	IBM EBCDIC (France)
20420	IBM420	IBM EBCDIC (Arabic)
20423	IBM423	IBM EBCDIC (Greek)
20424	IBM424	IBM EBCDIC (Hebrew)
20833	x-EBCDIC-KoreanExtended	IBM EBCDIC (Korean Extended)
20838	IBM-Thai	IBM EBCDIC (Thai)
20866	koi8-r	Cyrillic (KOI8-R)
20871	IBM871	IBM EBCDIC (Icelandic)
20880	IBM880	IBM EBCDIC (Cyrillic Russian)
20905	IBM905	IBM EBCDIC (Turkish)
20924	IBM00924	IBM Latin-1
20932	EUC-JP	Japanese (JIS 0208-1990 and 0212-1990)
20936	x-cp20936	Chinese Simplified (GB2312-80)	✓
20949	x-cp20949	Korean Wansung	✓
21025	cp1025	IBM EBCDIC (Cyrillic Serbian-Bulgarian)
21866	koi8-u	Cyrillic (KOI8-U)
28591	iso-8859-1	Western European (ISO)	✓	✓	✓
28592	iso-8859-2	Central European (ISO)
28593	iso-8859-3	Latin 3 (ISO)
28594	iso-8859-4	Baltic (ISO)
28595	iso-8859-5	Cyrillic (ISO)
28596	iso-8859-6	Arabic (ISO)
28597	iso-8859-7	Greek (ISO)
28598	iso-8859-8	Hebrew (ISO-Visual)	✓
28599	iso-8859-9	Turkish (ISO)
28603	iso-8859-13	Estonian (ISO)
28605	iso-8859-15	Latin 9 (ISO)
29001	x-Europa	Europa
38598	iso-8859-8-i	Hebrew (ISO-Logical)	✓
50220	iso-2022-jp	Japanese (JIS)	✓
50221	csISO2022JP	Japanese (JIS-Allow 1 byte Kana)	✓
50222	iso-2022-jp	Japanese (JIS-Allow 1 byte Kana - SO/SI)	✓
50225	iso-2022-kr	Korean (ISO)	✓
50227	x-cp50227	Chinese Simplified (ISO-2022)	✓
51932	euc-jp	Japanese (EUC)	✓
51936	EUC-CN	Chinese Simplified (EUC)	✓
51949	euc-kr	Korean (EUC)	✓
52936	hz-gb-2312	Chinese Simplified (HZ)	✓
54936	GB18030	Chinese Simplified (GB18030)	✓
57002	x-iscii-de	ISCII Devanagari	✓
57003	x-iscii-be	ISCII Bengali	✓
57004	x-iscii-ta	ISCII Tamil	✓
57005	x-iscii-te	ISCII Telugu	✓
57006	x-iscii-as	ISCII Assamese	✓
57007	x-iscii-or	ISCII Oriya	✓
57008	x-iscii-ka	ISCII Kannada	✓
57009	x-iscii-ma	ISCII Malayalam	✓
57010	x-iscii-gu	ISCII Gujarati	✓
57011	x-iscii-pa	ISCII Punjabi	✓
65000	utf-7	Unicode (UTF-7)	✓	✓
65001	utf-8	Unicode (UTF-8)	✓	✓	✓

The following example calls the GetEncoding(Int32) and GetEncoding(String) methods to get the Greek (Windows) code page encoding. It compares the Encoding objects returned by the method calls to show that they are equal, and then maps displays the Unicode code point and the corresponding code page value for each character in the Greek alphabet.

using System;
using System.Text;

public class Example
{
   public static void Main()
   {
      Encoding enc = Encoding.GetEncoding(1253);
      Encoding altEnc = Encoding.GetEncoding("windows-1253");
      Console.WriteLine("{0} = Code Page {1}: {2}", enc.EncodingName,
                        altEnc.CodePage, enc.Equals(altEnc));
      string greekAlphabet = "Α α Β β Γ γ Δ δ Ε ε Ζ ζ Η η " +
                             "Θ θ Ι ι Κ κ Λ λ Μ μ Ν ν Ξ ξ " +
                             "Ο ο Π π Ρ ρ Σ σ ς Τ τ Υ υ " +
                             "Φ φ Χ χ Ψ ψ Ω ω";
      Console.OutputEncoding = Encoding.UTF8;
      byte[] bytes = enc.GetBytes(greekAlphabet);
      Console.WriteLine("{0,-12} {1,20} {2,20:X2}", "Character",
                        "Unicode Code Point", "Code Page 1253");
      for (int ctr = 0; ctr < bytes.Length; ctr++) {
         if (greekAlphabet[ctr].Equals(' '))
            continue;

         Console.WriteLine("{0,-12} {1,20} {2,20:X2}", greekAlphabet[ctr],
                           GetCodePoint(greekAlphabet[ctr]), bytes[ctr]);
      }
   }

   private static string GetCodePoint(char ch)
   {
      string retVal = "u+";
      byte[] bytes = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(ch.ToString());
      for (int ctr = bytes.Length - 1; ctr >= 0; ctr--)
         retVal += bytes[ctr].ToString("X2");

      return retVal;
   }
}
// The example displays the following output:
//       Character      Unicode Code Point       Code Page 1253
//       Α                          u+0391                   C1
//       α                          u+03B1                   E1
//       Β                          u+0392                   C2
//       β                          u+03B2                   E2
//       Γ                          u+0393                   C3
//       γ                          u+03B3                   E3
//       Δ                          u+0394                   C4
//       δ                          u+03B4                   E4
//       Ε                          u+0395                   C5
//       ε                          u+03B5                   E5
//       Ζ                          u+0396                   C6
//       ζ                          u+03B6                   E6
//       Η                          u+0397                   C7
//       η                          u+03B7                   E7
//       Θ                          u+0398                   C8
//       θ                          u+03B8                   E8
//       Ι                          u+0399                   C9
//       ι                          u+03B9                   E9
//       Κ                          u+039A                   CA
//       κ                          u+03BA                   EA
//       Λ                          u+039B                   CB
//       λ                          u+03BB                   EB
//       Μ                          u+039C                   CC
//       μ                          u+03BC                   EC
//       Ν                          u+039D                   CD
//       ν                          u+03BD                   ED
//       Ξ                          u+039E                   CE
//       ξ                          u+03BE                   EE
//       Ο                          u+039F                   CF
//       ο                          u+03BF                   EF
//       Π                          u+03A0                   D0
//       π                          u+03C0                   F0
//       Ρ                          u+03A1                   D1
//       ρ                          u+03C1                   F1
//       Σ                          u+03A3                   D3
//       σ                          u+03C3                   F3
//       ς                          u+03C2                   F2
//       Τ                          u+03A4                   D4
//       τ                          u+03C4                   F4
//       Υ                          u+03A5                   D5
//       υ                          u+03C5                   F5
//       Φ                          u+03A6                   D6
//       φ                          u+03C6                   F6
//       Χ                          u+03A7                   D7
//       χ                          u+03C7                   F7
//       Ψ                          u+03A8                   D8
//       ψ                          u+03C8                   F8
//       Ω                          u+03A9                   D9
//       ω                          u+03C9                   F9

Imports System.Text

Module Example
   Public Sub Main()
      Dim enc As Encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding(1253)
      Dim altEnc As Encoding = Encoding.GetEncoding("windows-1253")
      Console.WriteLine("{0} = Code Page {1}: {2}", enc.EncodingName,
                        altEnc.CodePage, enc.Equals(altEnc))
      Dim greekAlphabet As String = "Α α Β β Γ γ Δ δ Ε ε Ζ ζ Η η " +
                                    "Θ θ Ι ι Κ κ Λ λ Μ μ Ν ν Ξ ξ " +
                                    "Ο ο Π π Ρ ρ Σ σ ς Τ τ Υ υ " +
                                    "Φ φ Χ χ Ψ ψ Ω ω"
      Console.OutputEncoding = Encoding.UTF8
      Dim bytes() As Byte = enc.GetBytes(greekAlphabet)
      Console.WriteLine("{0,-12} {1,20} {2,20:X2}", "Character",
                        "Unicode Code Point", "Code Page 1253")
      For ctr As Integer = 0 To bytes.Length - 1
         If greekAlphabet(ctr).Equals(" "c) Then Continue For

         Console.WriteLine("{0,-12} {1,20} {2,20:X2}", greekAlphabet(ctr),
                           GetCodePoint(greekAlphabet(ctr)), bytes(ctr))
      Next

   End Sub
   
   Private Function GetCodePoint(ch As String) As String
      Dim retVal As String = "u+"
      Dim bytes() As Byte = Encoding.Unicode.GetBytes(ch)
      For ctr As Integer = bytes.Length - 1 To 0 Step -1
         retVal += bytes(ctr).ToString("X2")
      Next
      Return retVal
   End Function
End Module
' The example displays the following output:
'    Character      Unicode Code Point       Code Page 1253
'    Α                          u+0391                   C1
'    α                          u+03B1                   E1
'    Β                          u+0392                   C2
'    β                          u+03B2                   E2
'    Γ                          u+0393                   C3
'    γ                          u+03B3                   E3
'    Δ                          u+0394                   C4
'    δ                          u+03B4                   E4
'    Ε                          u+0395                   C5
'    ε                          u+03B5                   E5
'    Ζ                          u+0396                   C6
'    ζ                          u+03B6                   E6
'    Η                          u+0397                   C7
'    η                          u+03B7                   E7
'    Θ                          u+0398                   C8
'    θ                          u+03B8                   E8
'    Ι                          u+0399                   C9
'    ι                          u+03B9                   E9
'    Κ                          u+039A                   CA
'    κ                          u+03BA                   EA
'    Λ                          u+039B                   CB
'    λ                          u+03BB                   EB
'    Μ                          u+039C                   CC
'    μ                          u+03BC                   EC
'    Ν                          u+039D                   CD
'    ν                          u+03BD                   ED
'    Ξ                          u+039E                   CE
'    ξ                          u+03BE                   EE
'    Ο                          u+039F                   CF
'    ο                          u+03BF                   EF
'    Π                          u+03A0                   D0
'    π                          u+03C0                   F0
'    Ρ                          u+03A1                   D1
'    ρ                          u+03C1                   F1
'    Σ                          u+03A3                   D3
'    σ                          u+03C3                   F3
'    ς                          u+03C2                   F2
'    Τ                          u+03A4                   D4
'    τ                          u+03C4                   F4
'    Υ                          u+03A5                   D5
'    υ                          u+03C5                   F5
'    Φ                          u+03A6                   D6
'    φ                          u+03C6                   F6
'    Χ                          u+03A7                   D7
'    χ                          u+03C7                   F7
'    Ψ                          u+03A8                   D8
'    ψ                          u+03C8                   F8
'    Ω                          u+03A9                   D9
'    ω                          u+03C9                   F9

If the data to be converted is available only in sequential blocks (such as data read from a stream) or if the amount of data is so large that it needs to be divided into smaller blocks, you should use the Decoder or the Encoder provided by the GetDecoder method or the GetEncoder method, respectively, of a derived class.

The UTF-16 and the UTF-32 encoders can use the big endian byte order (most significant byte first) or the little endian byte order (least significant byte first). For example, the Latin Capital Letter A (U+0041) is serialized as follows (in hexadecimal):

• UTF-16 big endian byte order: 00 41

• UTF-16 little endian byte order: 41 00

• UTF-32 big endian byte order: 00 00 00 41

• UTF-32 little endian byte order: 41 00 00 00

It is generally more efficient to store Unicode characters using the native byte order. For example, it is better to use the little endian byte order on little endian platforms, such as Intel computers.

The GetPreamble method retrieves an array of bytes that includes the byte order mark (BOM). If this byte array is prefixed to an encoded stream, it helps the decoder to identify the encoding format used.

For more information on byte order and the byte order mark, see The Unicode Standard at the Unicode home page.

Note that the encoding classes allow errors to:

• Silently change to a "?" character.

• Use a "best fit" character.

• Change to an application-specific behavior through use of the EncoderFallback and DecoderFallback classes with the U+FFFD Unicode replacement character.

You should throw an exception on any data stream error. An app either uses a "throwonerror" flag when applicable or uses the EncoderExceptionFallback and DecoderExceptionFallback classes. Best fit fallback is often not recommended because it can cause data loss or confusion and is slower than simple character replacements. For ANSI encodings, the best fit behavior is the default.

Constructors

Encoding()	Initializes a new instance of the Encoding class.
Encoding(Int32)	Initializes a new instance of the Encoding class that corresponds to the specified code page.
Encoding(Int32, EncoderFallback, DecoderFallback)	Initializes a new instance of the Encoding class that corresponds to the specified code page with the specified encoder and decoder fallback strategies.

Properties

ASCII	Gets an encoding for the ASCII (7-bit) character set.
BigEndianUnicode	Gets an encoding for the UTF-16 format that uses the big endian byte order.
BodyName	When overridden in a derived class, gets a name for the current encoding that can be used with mail agent body tags.
CodePage	When overridden in a derived class, gets the code page identifier of the current Encoding.
DecoderFallback	Gets or sets the DecoderFallback object for the current Encoding object.
Default	Gets the default encoding for this .NET implementation.
EncoderFallback	Gets or sets the EncoderFallback object for the current Encoding object.
EncodingName	When overridden in a derived class, gets the human-readable description of the current encoding.
HeaderName	When overridden in a derived class, gets a name for the current encoding that can be used with mail agent header tags.
IsBrowserDisplay	When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current encoding can be used by browser clients for displaying content.
IsBrowserSave	When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current encoding can be used by browser clients for saving content.
IsMailNewsDisplay	When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current encoding can be used by mail and news clients for displaying content.
IsMailNewsSave	When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current encoding can be used by mail and news clients for saving content.
IsReadOnly	When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current encoding is read-only.
IsSingleByte	When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current encoding uses single-byte code points.
Latin1	Gets an encoding for the Latin1 character set (ISO-8859-1).
Preamble	When overridden in a derived class, returns a span containing the sequence of bytes that specifies the encoding used.
Unicode	Gets an encoding for the UTF-16 format using the little endian byte order.
UTF32	Gets an encoding for the UTF-32 format using the little endian byte order.
UTF7	Obsolete. Gets an encoding for the UTF-7 format.
UTF8	Gets an encoding for the UTF-8 format.
WebName	When overridden in a derived class, gets the name registered with the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) for the current encoding.
WindowsCodePage	When overridden in a derived class, gets the Windows operating system code page that most closely corresponds to the current encoding.

Methods

Clone()	When overridden in a derived class, creates a shallow copy of the current Encoding object.
Convert(Encoding, Encoding, Byte[])	Converts an entire byte array from one encoding to another.
Convert(Encoding, Encoding, Byte[], Int32, Int32)	Converts a range of bytes in a byte array from one encoding to another.
CreateTranscodingStream(Stream, Encoding, Encoding, Boolean)	Creates a Stream that serves to transcode data between an inner Encoding and an outer Encoding, similar to Convert(Encoding, Encoding, Byte[]).
Equals(Object)	Determines whether the specified Object is equal to the current instance.
GetByteCount(Char*, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of bytes produced by encoding a set of characters starting at the specified character pointer.
GetByteCount(Char[])	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of bytes produced by encoding all the characters in the specified character array.
GetByteCount(Char[], Int32, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of bytes produced by encoding a set of characters from the specified character array.
GetByteCount(ReadOnlySpan<Char>)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of bytes produced by encoding the characters in the specified character span.
GetByteCount(String)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of bytes produced by encoding the characters in the specified string.
GetByteCount(String, Int32, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of bytes produced by encoding a set of characters from the specified string.
GetBytes(Char*, Int32, Byte*, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, encodes a set of characters starting at the specified character pointer into a sequence of bytes that are stored starting at the specified byte pointer.
GetBytes(Char[])	When overridden in a derived class, encodes all the characters in the specified character array into a sequence of bytes.
GetBytes(Char[], Int32, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, encodes a set of characters from the specified character array into a sequence of bytes.
GetBytes(Char[], Int32, Int32, Byte[], Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, encodes a set of characters from the specified character array into the specified byte array.
GetBytes(ReadOnlySpan<Char>, Span<Byte>)	When overridden in a derived class, encodes into a span of bytes a set of characters from the specified read-only span.
GetBytes(String)	When overridden in a derived class, encodes all the characters in the specified string into a sequence of bytes.
GetBytes(String, Int32, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, encodes into an array of bytes the number of characters specified by count in the specified string, starting from the specified index.
GetBytes(String, Int32, Int32, Byte[], Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, encodes a set of characters from the specified string into the specified byte array.
GetCharCount(Byte*, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of characters produced by decoding a sequence of bytes starting at the specified byte pointer.
GetCharCount(Byte[])	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of characters produced by decoding all the bytes in the specified byte array.
GetCharCount(Byte[], Int32, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of characters produced by decoding a sequence of bytes from the specified byte array.
GetCharCount(ReadOnlySpan<Byte>)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the number of characters produced by decoding the provided read-only byte span.
GetChars(Byte*, Int32, Char*, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, decodes a sequence of bytes starting at the specified byte pointer into a set of characters that are stored starting at the specified character pointer.
GetChars(Byte[])	When overridden in a derived class, decodes all the bytes in the specified byte array into a set of characters.
GetChars(Byte[], Int32, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, decodes a sequence of bytes from the specified byte array into a set of characters.
GetChars(Byte[], Int32, Int32, Char[], Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, decodes a sequence of bytes from the specified byte array into the specified character array.
GetChars(ReadOnlySpan<Byte>, Span<Char>)	When overridden in a derived class, decodes all the bytes in the specified read-only byte span into a character span.
GetDecoder()	When overridden in a derived class, obtains a decoder that converts an encoded sequence of bytes into a sequence of characters.
GetEncoder()	When overridden in a derived class, obtains an encoder that converts a sequence of Unicode characters into an encoded sequence of bytes.
GetEncoding(Int32)	Returns the encoding associated with the specified code page identifier.
GetEncoding(Int32, EncoderFallback, DecoderFallback)	Returns the encoding associated with the specified code page identifier. Parameters specify an error handler for characters that cannot be encoded and byte sequences that cannot be decoded.
GetEncoding(String)	Returns the encoding associated with the specified code page name.
GetEncoding(String, EncoderFallback, DecoderFallback)	Returns the encoding associated with the specified code page name. Parameters specify an error handler for characters that cannot be encoded and byte sequences that cannot be decoded.
GetEncodings()	Returns an array that contains all encodings.
GetHashCode()	Returns the hash code for the current instance.
GetMaxByteCount(Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the maximum number of bytes produced by encoding the specified number of characters.
GetMaxCharCount(Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, calculates the maximum number of characters produced by decoding the specified number of bytes.
GetPreamble()	When overridden in a derived class, returns a sequence of bytes that specifies the encoding used.
GetString(Byte*, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, decodes a specified number of bytes starting at a specified address into a string.
GetString(Byte[])	When overridden in a derived class, decodes all the bytes in the specified byte array into a string.
GetString(Byte[], Int32, Int32)	When overridden in a derived class, decodes a sequence of bytes from the specified byte array into a string.
GetString(ReadOnlySpan<Byte>)	When overridden in a derived class, decodes all the bytes in the specified byte span into a string.
GetType()	Gets the Type of the current instance. (Inherited from Object)
IsAlwaysNormalized()	Gets a value indicating whether the current encoding is always normalized, using the default normalization form.
IsAlwaysNormalized(NormalizationForm)	When overridden in a derived class, gets a value indicating whether the current encoding is always normalized, using the specified normalization form.
MemberwiseClone()	Creates a shallow copy of the current Object. (Inherited from Object)
RegisterProvider(EncodingProvider)	Registers an encoding provider.
ToString()	Returns a string that represents the current object. (Inherited from Object)

Extension Methods

GetBytes(Encoding, ReadOnlySequence<Char>)	Encodes the specified ReadOnlySequence<T> into a Byte array using the specified Encoding.
GetBytes(Encoding, ReadOnlySequence<Char>, IBufferWriter<Byte>)	Decodes the specified ReadOnlySequence<T> to bytes using the specified Encoding and writes the result to writer.
GetBytes(Encoding, ReadOnlySequence<Char>, Span<Byte>)	Encodes the specified ReadOnlySequence<T> to bytes using the specified Encoding and outputs the result to bytes.
GetBytes(Encoding, ReadOnlySpan<Char>, IBufferWriter<Byte>)	Encodes the specified ReadOnlySpan<T> to bytes using the specified Encoding and writes the result to writer.
GetChars(Encoding, ReadOnlySequence<Byte>, IBufferWriter<Char>)	Decodes the specified ReadOnlySequence<T> to chars using the specified Encoding and writes the result to writer.
GetChars(Encoding, ReadOnlySequence<Byte>, Span<Char>)	Decodes the specified ReadOnlySequence<T> to chars using the specified Encoding and outputs the result to chars.
GetChars(Encoding, ReadOnlySpan<Byte>, IBufferWriter<Char>)	Decodes the specified ReadOnlySpan<T> to chars using the specified Encoding and writes the result to writer.
GetString(Encoding, ReadOnlySequence<Byte>)	Decodes the specified ReadOnlySequence<T> into a String using the specified Encoding.

See also

• How to use character encoding classes in .NET