Timer recordings state does not keep unicode EPG text

[tim copperfield]

When recordings are scheduled, timers.xml (%programdata%\CMUV\DVBViewer) state is saved as encoding="iso-8859-1".

This prevents any international (Arabic, CJK, Thai, etc) filenames from being recorded if DVBViewer is shutdown and re-opened.

 

Any non-iso8859 characters are replaced with "?". and turn into " " (space) in recording filename as a result.

 

If DVBViewer is continuously running (not shutdown between recordings) then the filenames are correctly written as they appear on EPG.

 

Solution: change timers.XML encoding to utf-8

[Griga]

5 hours ago, tim copperfield said:

When recordings are scheduled, timers.xml (%programdata%\CMUV\DVBViewer) state is saved as encoding="iso-8859-1".

 

Never trust the encoding information in DVBViewer XML configuration files.

 

Actually the character coding of the timers.xml is based on the Windows code page for non-unicode programs (mostly for compatibility reasons), which means, it is not necessarily iso-8859-1 (similar to Windows Western European), but depends on your region settings. Read more about it here.

 

5 hours ago, tim copperfield said:

Any non-iso8859 characters are replaced with "?".

 

....the result of character conversion  from Unicode to the system code page. Some characters are not available in this code page. Issues like this are mostly caused by a code page for non-unicode programs that doesn't match the actually used language.

 

Nevertheless this is  clearly a DVBViewer drawback and has to be changed sooner or later. The timers.xml should use UTF-8 character coding, like the svctimers.xml created by the DVBViewer Media Server, even if add-ons that rely on the current encoding won't work properly anymore.

[tim copperfield]

6 hours ago, Griga said:

Nevertheless this is  clearly a DVBViewer drawback and has to be changed sooner or later. The timers.xml should use UTF-8 character coding, like the svctimers.xml created by the DVBViewer Media Server, even if add-ons that rely on the current encoding won't work properly anymore.

Correct.

 

[Griga]

As preparation for future changes the 6.0.4 release is able to read a timers.xml with UTF-8 content. If needed I can send you a DVBViewer 6.0.4 test version that also writes a UTF-8 timers.xml. A 6.0.4 installation is required for it. Please let me know...

[tim copperfield]

43 minutes ago, Griga said:

A 6.0.4 installation is required for it. Please let me know...

Sure thing.

I'll update to 6.00.4 now and you can send me the updated binary.

[Griga]

Check your PMs.

[tim copperfield]

6 minutes ago, Griga said:

Check your PMs.

 

Downloaded and installed.

Can confirm, timers.xml is in UTF8 and properly keeps non-ascii character state in recordings on shutdown/open.

[Griga]

Thanks for testing. Please keep an eye on it. Reading is based on UTF-8 auto-detection for compatibility reasons, and I'm not sure if it works flawlessly under all circumstances.