# readme - TestEncoding

Inhalt

Topic:.readme_TestEncoding.

This example should show how encoding works. It is a test bench to check the parser at the same time.

Encoding is the definition, which bit pattern are used for the textual readable chars in a file. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_encoding. Encoding and Coding is used for 3 processes:

- Encoding of the ZBNF-Script-file

- Encoding of the Input to parse

- Decoding of the outputted XML-file from Zbnf2Xml

It is possible to write the ZBNF-script with any character set, process input files which other character sets and generate XML with a third character set. The encodings are determined by the generating and using processes outside of the parser. Thats why several encodings should be work.

A often used encoding is UTF-8. But this character code may need more as one byte for special chars. On windows the typical country-specific 8-bit-character sets are used. Foreign character sets at example the Cyrillic alphabet or japanese should work.

The example contains:

    del_results.bat
    testEncodings.bat
    testEncodings.zbnf
    input_UTF8.txt
    output.reference.xml
    outputASCII.reference.xml
    outputUTF8.reference.xml

- `del_results.bat`: helper to clean.

- `testEncodings.bat`: Windows-batch file to invoke parsings using Zbnf2Xml.

- `input_UTF8.txt`: A text file which should be parsed.

- `testEncodings.zbnf`: The ZBNF-syntax of the textfile.

- `*.reference.xml`: The expected result in some encodings: Test results with changed conditions should be compared with it.

If `testEncodings.bat` is invoked, the following files should be created:

    output.xml
    outputASCII.xml
    outputUTF8.xml