Using :encoding(UTF-16) on a file not encoded using UTF-16 will likely die as a result of not finding \xFE\xFF or \xFF\xFE at the start of the file.

Using :encoding(UTF-16le) on a file not encoded using UTF-16le will result in garbage and/or die.

You must know the encoding of the file to be able to read it.

I think File::BOM will help you. It imposes an limitation (the presence of a BOM for non-default encodings), but that doesn't sound like a problem for you.

In reply to Re^4: How to handle unicode txt file on Windows by ikegami
in thread How to handle unicode txt file on Windows by cheerful

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