NSTask output special characters convert to UTF8

Question

I'm running lsof through NSTask, pipe output and read into NSData. Then I create NSString with this data:

[[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];

Problem I see, is how NSTask interprets special characters. For file with name: !@#$%^±^&*()ľščťžýáíé.docx I get this result: !@#$%^\xc2\xb1^&*()l\xcc\x8cs\xcc\x8cc\xcc\x8ct\xcc\x8cz\xcc\x8cy\xcc\x81a\xcc\x81i\xcc\x81e\xcc\x81.docx Seems like decomposed UTF8 with hex encoded values. Unfortunately I'm not able to find a way of converting this to proper UTF8.

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 16 '15 at 10:54

3

I found out that setting environment variable LC_ALL to en_US.UTF-8 does the trick.

[task setEnvironment:@{@"LC_ALL" : @"en_US.UTF-8"}];

answered Sep 16 '15 at 10:54

Marcel Vyberal

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Unfortunately this does not work for me, NSTask still produces decomposed utf-8. – Yakuhzi Nov 07 '18 at 21:38
Thank you! This was driving me crazy. This worked for me. – user1118321 Jul 09 '21 at 00:37

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 12 '19 at 23:43

1

In Swift NSTask is replaced by Process:

let process: Process = Process()
process.environment = ["LC_ALL": "en_US.UTF-8"]

answered Nov 12 '19 at 23:43

pableiros

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 14 '19 at 02:33

0

It work for me.

    NSTask *task = [[NSTask alloc] init];
    NSMutableDictionary * e = [NSMutableDictionary dictionaryWithDictionary:[[NSProcessInfo processInfo] environment]];
    [e setObject:@"en_US.UTF-8" forKey:@"LC_ALL"];
    [e setObject:@"en_US.UTF-8" forKey:@"LANG"];
    [task setEnvironment:e];

answered Jan 14 '19 at 02:33

T_Wang

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Could you explain what your code is doing and why it solves the problem. – dwjohnston Jan 14 '19 at 02:44

NSTask output special characters convert to UTF8

3 Answers3