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**Dale Yarker** · 27 Jan 2019, 07:36 PM

Use the function (something like this came up before) to get wide character string, then ACODE$ to get ASCII. Or, modify the to return ASCII (it is just low byte of wide character (for just ASCII)).

Code:

' file demoUTF8_3.bas
#compile exe
#dim all
declare function MessageBoxW lib "User32.dll" alias "MessageBoxW" _
    (byval hWnd as dword, byval lpText as wstringz pointer, lpCaption as wstringz, _
    byval dwType as dword) as long
'- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
'  \/  \/ what you're looking for \/  \/
'+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
function MyUTF8_to_wide(byref UTF8In as string) as string
  local ByteCnt as long 'count of bytes in input string
  local CharCnt as long 'count of characters in input string
  local pByte as byte pointer '
  local pBytePast as long
  local OutStr as string
  local pOutWd as word pointer
  local TempWChar as word
  local CurChar, CntBits as long
  '- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  'Size and create OutStr with nulls to avoid repeated concatinations
  '
  ByteCnt = len(UTF8In)
  pByte = strptr(UTF8In)
  pBytePast = pByte + ByteCnt
  'u8InLen = len(UTF8In)
  'u8Temp = UTF8In 'so no changes to input string
  do
    if bit(@pByte, 7) = 0 then 'character is one byte (0xxxxxxx)
      incr pByte
    else 'character is two, three or four bytes
      if bit(@pByte, 6) = 1 then
        if bit(@pByte, 5) = 0 then 'two               (110xxxxx)
           pByte += 2
        else '
          if bit(@pByte, 4) = 0 then 'three           (1110xxxx)
            pByte += 3
          else
            if bit(@pByte, 3) = 0 then 'four          (11110xxx)
              'pByte += 4
              goto RangeError '4th byte is more than 16 bits a wide can hold
            end if
          end if
        end if
      else 'bit six never 0 in 1st byte if there are 2, 3 or 4 bytes; _
           'always 0 in 2nd, 3rd and 4th, here 1st byte unless sync error
        goto SyncError 'error
      end if
    end if
    incr CharCnt
    if pByte = pBytePast then
      exit loop
    elseif pByte > pBytePast then
      goto SyncError
    end if
  loop
  OutStr = string$(CharCnt * 2, $nul)
  pOutWd = strptr(OutStr)
  '- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  'get size of each character and shift bits into place
  pByte = strptr(UTF8In)
  for CurChar = 1 to CharCnt
    'bytes in this character by first 0 bit position from left
    if bit(@pByte, 7) = 0 then
      CntBits = 6  'to indicate 1 byte length in select case
    else '
      for CntBits = 5 to 3 step -1
        if bit(@pByte, CntBits) = 0 then
          exit for
        end if
      next
    end if
    select case const CntBits
      case 6 'is a one byte character
        TempWChar = mak(word, @pByte, 0)
      case 5 'is a two byte character
        TempWChar = mak(word, @pByte, 0) and &b0000000000011111??
        gosub AddIn2nd3rd4th
      case 4 'is a three byte character
        TempWChar = mak(word, @pByte, 0) and &b0000000000001111??
        gosub AddIn2nd3rd4th
        gosub AddIn2nd3rd4th
      case 3 'four byte character is not used. Is past 16 bits.
             'For future reference only.
        TempWChar = mak(word, @pByte, 0) and &b0000000000000111??
        gosub AddIn2nd3rd4th
        gosub AddIn2nd3rd4th
        gosub AddIn2nd3rd4th
    end select
    pByte += 1 'point to first (or only) byte in next character
    @pOutWd = TempWChar
    incr pOutWd
  next
  function = OutStr
  exit function 'don't "fall" into subs
  '- - SUBs and GOTO target code - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  AddIn2nd3rd4th:
    pByte += 1 'point to next byte in this character
    shift left TempWChar, 6
    TempWChar or= (mak(word, @pByte, 0) and &b0000000000111111??)
  return
  SyncError:
    function = build$("E", $nul, "r", $nul, "r", $nul, "o", $nul, "r", $nul)
    exit function 'exit on error vs. return
  RangeError:
    function = build$("O", $nul, "v", $nul, "e", $nul, "r", $nul, $spc, $nul, _
       "r", $nul, "a", $nul, "n", $nul, "g", $nul, "e", $nul)
end function
'+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
'^^^ You want the above for use. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
' Below here makes file to "see" bits of wide and UTF-8 to figure a
' manipulation for the convertion.
' Also, test of the proposed function.
function pbmain () as long
  local wChrs() as word
  local wStr as wstring
  local u8Str, wHex, u8Hex, u8Bits, wBits as string
  local Sz as long
  local x as word
  local pByte as byte pointer
  local nFile as dword
  '

'- - Test the function - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
  local u8TestStr as string
  local ResultStr as string
  local ResultHex as string
  'Contents of string c of Eros' test
  u8TestStr = chr$(&hE3, &h83, &h8F, _ 'h30CF
                   &hE3, &h83, &hAD, _ 'h30ED
                   &hE3, &h83, &hBC, _ 'h30FC
                   &hE3, &h83, &hAF, _ 'h30EF
                   &hE3, &h83, &hBC, _ 'h30FC
                   &hE3, &h83, &hAB, _ 'h30EB
                   &hE3, &h83, &h89)   'h30C9

  ResultStr = MyUTF8_to_wide(u8TestStr)
  messageboxW 0, strptr(ResultStr), "Hi", 0
  ResultHex = hex$(asc(ResultStr, 1), 2) + hex$(asc(ResultStr, 2), 2) + $spc + _
              hex$(asc(ResultStr, 3), 2) + hex$(asc(ResultStr, 4), 2) + $spc + _
              hex$(asc(ResultStr, 5), 2) + hex$(asc(ResultStr, 6), 2) + $spc + _
              hex$(asc(ResultStr, 7), 2) + hex$(asc(ResultStr, 8), 2) + $spc + _
              hex$(asc(ResultStr, 9), 2) + hex$(asc(ResultStr,10), 2) + $spc + _
              hex$(asc(ResultStr,11), 2) + hex$(asc(ResultStr,12), 2) + $spc + _
              hex$(asc(ResultStr,13), 2) + hex$(asc(ResultStr,14), 2)

  ?  ResultHex
  #if %def(%pb_cc32)
    ? "Done. Any key to end."
    waitkey$
  #else
    ? "Done. OK button to end."
  #endif
end function

Double check, Maybe result is wide characters in normal STRING.

**Dale Yarker** · 27 Jan 2019, 07:52 PM

Wait a minute PowerBASIC has UTF8ToChr$ function and ChrToUTF8$ function. See Help.

Cheers,

**Stuart McLachlan** · 27 Jan 2019, 08:16 PM

That's not UTF-8 to ASCII. You are wanting to decode "quoted printable" MIME encoding. The =?UTF-8?Q tells you the following data is UTF-8 "quoted printable" encoded. "=20" is just QP encoding for a space Chr$(32)/Chr$(&H20), "=3A" is just a colon CHR$(58) / Chr$($H3A) All you need to know is in RFC 2047 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2047.

**Stuart McLachlan** · 27 Jan 2019, 08:23 PM

Good intro to the topic here: https://ncona.com/2011/06/using-utf-...-mail-subject/

**Gary Beene** · 27 Jan 2019, 09:29 PM

Hi Dale.
Yes, I'm aware of the PowerBASIC functions but in my tests they did not do the conversion of the example I gave in the OP. As Stuart noted, they don't work on "quoted printables".

And, Stuart,
Yes, the intro in that first link was a very nice intro/summary. Bummer that php has the capability and PowerBASIC does not.

I can't get the RFC link to come up, but I Googled and got another link. Reading the RFC 2047, I can't tell exactly how many encodings it says are are possible, but if the end result can only be a printable ASCII character, then the number is around 128-32? That's not so large that a function couldn't be generated to convert them all.

I've not read through the entire RFC yet, so there are details I've to yet understand. But there sure is a lot of discussion in the RFC for something that might seem to be essentially a series of substitutions (at least for the Q encoding).

**Gary Beene** · 27 Jan 2019, 09:35 PM

There's a good StackOverFlow discussion here.

This point is particularly useful ...

If you are decoding quoted-printable with UTF-8 encoding you will need to be aware that you cannot decode each quoted-printable sequence one-at-a-time as the others have shown if there are runs of quoted printable characters together.

Things are rarely as simple as we'd like them to be.

**Gary Beene** · 27 Jan 2019, 09:40 PM

And, now that Stuart put a name to it "quoted printable", here's a PowerBASIC thread on the topic.

**Gary Beene** · 27 Jan 2019, 09:56 PM

Dale,
Using your code in post #2, I get a hex output string. I can't tell from your comments what to do with it. Could you say a little more about it please?

I also tried the code from the link I just gave but it did not decode the string from the OP either.

I'll take a look at it all closer. Most likely something I'm doing wrong or something I'm not understanding.

**Stuart McLachlan** · 27 Jan 2019, 10:01 PM

Originally posted by Gary Beene View Post

And, now that Stuart put a name to it "quoted printable", here's a PowerBASIC thread on the topic.

Looks like it does just what you want:

This codes allows you to decode quoted printable headers for mail and
news. UTF-8, ISO-8859-1 and ISO-8859-15 (Euro) support.

Specifically:
FUNCTION Get_Qp2Text(BYVAL EncodedText AS STRING) AS STRING

**Stuart McLachlan** · 27 Jan 2019, 10:11 PM

Here's a stripped down version of the previous code: https://forum.powerbasic.com/forum/u...table-routines

**Knuth Konrad** · 28 Jan 2019, 03:37 AM

I'll throw https://pbcrypto.basicaware.de/ShowAlgorithm.aspx?id=28 into the mix.

**Dale Yarker** · 28 Jan 2019, 05:56 AM

I remembered why I wrote that code. The OP (at the time) needed wide characters in a STRING (vs WSTRING).

The link givin bt Stuart in post 4 says headers must be ASCII.

ASCII and UTF-8 are exactly the same for values 0 to 127 inclusive.

Therefore you're dealing with something other than straight UTF-8. (Base64? Base64 recoded in UTF-8? ???)

Think I'm outa here on this thread.

**Gary Beene** · 28 Jan 2019, 10:11 AM

Dale,
Well, don't go too far.

Threads have a way of wandering into new directions...

**Stuart McLachlan** · 28 Jan 2019, 03:05 PM

Originally posted by Dale Yarker View Post

I remembered why I wrote that code. The OP (at the time) needed wide characters in a STRING (vs WSTRING).

The link givin bt Stuart in post 4 says headers must be ASCII.

ASCII and UTF-8 are exactly the same for values 0 to 127 inclusive.

Therefore you're dealing with something other than straight UTF-8. (Base64? Base64 recoded in UTF-8? ???)

Think I'm outa here on this thread.

Actually, you're dealing with straight UTF-8 encoded as ASCII.

That's the whole point of QP encoding. It enables you to encode UTF-8 using just ASCII characters for transmission. That allows you to send an email with a Subject or From field containing foreign language characters etc

**Dale Yarker** · 28 Jan 2019, 05:18 PM

Actually, you're dealing with straight UTF-8 encoded as ASCII.

Actually, you didn't read your own reference!

Gary, If it were just ASCII nothing else would need to be done. Trying to "hide" a character above value of 127 using ASCII "=" and "?" patterns is not ASCII nor UTF-8. I do not know about that, and likelyhood of response like post number 15, is the reason I said I could no longer contribute to this thread.

(somebody thinks they're MCM's replacement _______)

**Stuart McLachlan** · 28 Jan 2019, 06:16 PM

Originally posted by Dale Yarker View Post

Trying to "hide" a character above value of 127 using ASCII "=" and "?" patterns is not ASCII nor UTF-8.

Let me try to clarify again.

What we have in the original post is an ASCII string transmitted as the FROM header of an email. For historical reasons, email header can only contain ASCII characters.

The content of an email is not limited to ASCII characters, but the actual transmission of the headers is.

Therefore there is a need to encode a message or parts of a message so that the non-ASCII characters can be transmitted when required in the headers.

RFC 2047 is the standard way to do this. It allows for various original character sets including UTF-8 and various OEM etc "high bit ASCII" character sets to be encoded just using the ASCII character set. The two main encoding methods in the RFC are Quoted Printable and Base-64.

That "From:..." string in the original post is an ASCII string resulting from "Quoted Printable" encoding of a UTF-8 string. An email client needs to be able to recognise it as such and decode the QP string back to it's original form. In this case UTF-8.

**Gary Beene** · 28 Jan 2019, 06:19 PM

Dale,
I don't think I yet understand what you're trying to tell me.

The incoming string that got me started on this thread was this, which is all ASCII characters, corresponding to what I read in RFC as encoding type "Q", or quoted-printable.

Code:

From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Yahoo?=" &lt;[email protected]&gt;

Here's another from an email I just downloaded.

Code:

Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Hi=2Cstay=20connected=20with=20Yahoo=20Mail=20mobile=20app?=

From what I have read, the Q characters must be from characters in the range 0x21 to 0x7E, so a space, which is out of that range, has to be Q coded, where "=20" is the Q code for a space. In general, the RFC says this about the Q coding ...

the techniques outlined here were designed to allow the use of non-ASCII characters in message headers

Is the bottom line that the "?UTF-8" is misleading, in that combined with the "Q", there's a hybrid encoding that taking place. It doesn't seem to me that you and Stuart are talking apples to apples.

As best I know, my need is to decode type Q coded message headers.

... added ... Stuart, just missed your post. This comment of yours ...

can only contain ASCII characters.

... doesn't clarify that characters 32 and below are not allowed Q characters. Do I have that correct?

**Gary Beene** · 28 Jan 2019, 08:55 PM

And, wouldn't you know it

, today I ran across a type B encoding ...

Code:

From: =?UTF-8?B?UGllciAx?= <[email protected]>

**Stuart McLachlan** · 28 Jan 2019, 09:45 PM

Originally posted by Gary Beene View Post

Dale,
I don't think I yet understand what you're trying to tell me.

The incoming string that got me started on this thread was this, which is all ASCII characters, corresponding to what I read in RFC as encoding type "Q", or quoted-printable.

Code:

From: "=?UTF-8?Q?Yahoo?=" &lt;[email protected]m&gt;

Here's another from an email I just downloaded.

Code:

Subject: =?UTF-8?Q?Hi=2Cstay=20connected=20with=20Yahoo=20Mail=20mobile=20app?=

From what I have read, the Q characters must be from characters in the range 0x21 to 0x7E, so a space, which is out of that range, has to be Q coded, where "=20" is the Q code for a space. In general, the RFC says this about the Q coding ...

Yes you have that correct. Note the word "Printable" in "Quoted Printable Encoding". Only printable characters are used in QP encoding. And there are a few additional rules about certain of those characters and the need to encode them.

e.g. RFC 2047 Para 5(3):
In this case the set of characters that may be used in a "Q"-encoded 'encoded-word' is restricted to: <upper and lower case ASCII letters, decimal digits, "!", "*", "+", "-", "/", "=", and "_" (underscore, ASCII 95.)>. [QUOTE]Is the bottom line that the "?UTF-8" is misleading, in that combined with the "Q", there's a hybrid encoding that taking place. It doesn't seem to me that you and Stuart are talking apples to apples. As best I know, my need is to decode type Q coded message headers. ... added ... Stuart, just missed your post. This comment of yours ... ... doesn't clarify that characters 32 and below are not allowed Q characters. Do I have that correct? {/QUOTE] The ?UTF-8 is not misleading at all. It is telling you that thehe original header before QP eoncoding was a UTF-8 string (or converted to that from a Windows WString.) Without knowing that,you cannot convert the QP string back to its correct form (a UTF-8 string).

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