chcp can't do everything

re: chcp can't do everything

Ilya Konstantinov — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:11:58 GMT

While we're at it, why not try "chcp 65001" (65001 = CP_UTF8)? Amazing but it actually works... but only if you set the console to use a TrueType font (and of course, unless you switch to full-screen text mode).

Too bad Lucida Console doesn't contain Hebrew glyphs. Given that there are other monospaced TrueType fonts in my system (such as Courier New, which happens to contain Hebrew glyphs), what makes a TrueType font appear in the console's Properties | Font screen?

re: chcp can't do everything

Ben Cooke — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 21:42:43 GMT

When you enable codepage 65001, batch files and cmd scripts no longer run. No idea why, but it's a bit of a show-stopper for chcp 65001.

re: chcp can't do everything

Dean Harding — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 02:06:36 GMT

Ilya: See here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q247815

re: chcp can't do everything

Mike Myers — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 07:42:46 GMT

"However, another set that is missing from the list is the ideographic code pages. You cannot use chcp to change to one of the ideographic code pages unless it is also the default system OEM code page."

I installed support for East Asian Languages into my English Windows XP Pro system, and have documents with filenames using ideograph characters. Is there really no way for me to work in the command shell (cmd.exe) with these files? Do I need to go buy a version of XP for the East Asian language I am interested in? I was hoping there was something easier I could do.

re: chcp can't do everything

Michael S. Kaplan — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 08:50:48 GMT

It means you cannot change to one of the CJK code pages, Mike. You can certainly try 'chcp 65001' and you can also try 'cmd /u' to see if you can work with them.

Or you can even change the default system locale and then the oemcp will match by default if you switch to the right one.

Lots of options....

re: chcp can't do everything

Mike Myers — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:19:26 GMT

Thanks for the suggestions Michael.

I have seen mention of code page 65001, but I don't see any effect by switching to it. I have created test data in Arabic, in Cyrillic, and in Japanese, and code page 65001 cannot display any of it correctly. At certain font sizes, if I choose Courier New as my console font I can work with Arabic and Cyrillic (on any code page, does not require a chcp).

Likewise, 'cmd /u' does not appear to affect the display, although it does a very good job of creating proper Unicode output. That is, I can do a 'dir' and still not *see* anything in the console, but if I do a 'dir > results.txt' then I get a Unicode text file (I believe) that is readable with Notepad and all of the characters display there correctly.

I will attempt to change the system locale but had hesitated on trying this because I was hoping to avoid system-wide changes requiring a reboot, whenever I needed to work with certain file data.

re: chcp can't do everything

Michael S. Kaplan — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 19:58:50 GMT

Hi Mike,

Well, perhaps moving out of the [legacy] console world might be the best solution, in that case? Unicode apps have a much easier time when they are not stuck there....

With that said, I had very little trouble converting console projects to Unicode in the past (I'll be blogging about this soon)....

re: chcp can't do everything

Michael S. Kaplan — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 17:25:56 GMT

Apologies to Stanislav Kniazev -- I removed the table, since it is really unreadable in that format? Better to just provide tre link to the MSDN topic, instead?

re: chcp can't do everything

Stanislav Kniazev — Tue, 09 May 2006 15:43:02 GMT

If you need unicode output in file, you must use command CMD with option /U.
If you need unicode output in MS console, you must use the following command:
chcp 65001 && <your_command>, where <your_command> is any command or batch file. Font property for MS console in this case must be of course changed to "Lucida Console".
In the following table you find code pages for all charsets:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/dhtml/reference/charsets/charset4.asp

re: chcp can't do everything

Ran Ever-Hadani — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 02:43:23 GMT

I got here via a mutual friend (Google). I want to use the 1252 code page. Chcp 1252 seems to respond well (it says 1252 is now active) but then when I type a file that contains upper ascii in it, it still display it as one would expect under page 437. I try writing to the screen from a program, I try to type characters directly holding down ALT and typing the decimal value - it still show me the page 437 characters, not the 1252 characters. As far as I can tell, all CHCP does under XP is tell you that your page is active, otherwise nothing. :( I would greatly appreciate any pointers. Thank.

re: chcp can't do everything

Michael S. Kaplan — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 14:39:20 GMT

Change out of the raster font, perhaps? Move to Lucida Console....

re: chcp can't do everything

rbouman — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 08:17:10 GMT

interesting reading here, thank you.

I've had an occurrance of the path variable on xp pro being displayed correctly once only as human readable then as ascii chars only.

turned out the codepage for this machine was set to 850, if I then manually set the codepage to 437, the path variable remains human readable [that is; from a command prompt screen output].

the mystery is ; the machine is set to australian english in regional settings; there's no multi linguallity [is that a word?] other than that.

what else could possibly cause the path variable [and it's the only environment variable to be affected] to display ascii chars?

I'm also making the assumption that the ascii chars may cause some apps. to not read the path var. properly, right?

Even the prisoners of the motherland use cp1252 (though they escaped 037)

Sorting it all Out — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:03:15 GMT

This blog dedicated to six weeks I almost got to spend in Australia nearly 15 years ago, and a Kinks

re: chcp can't do everything

Accsem3 — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 20:15:28 GMT

>If you need unicode output in file, you must use command CMD with option /U.

I've tried

CMD /U Tree /a > temp.txt

in line 1 of batch file, which stop in this command and nothing is actually executed.

temp.txt is not generated and the script does not continue.

Using a Japanese Windows XP, eastern language enabled of course

And for CHCP, the dos batch script will just close after running CHCP, anything below CHCP will not be executed as well.

re: chcp can't do everything

sslaith — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:53:18 GMT

Is there a replacement for chcp on a 64bit client, I was browsing through the system32 and found chcp,

but looking through sysWoW64, I saw nothing that resembles a chcp setting.

re: chcp can't do everything

DevoMax — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 05:38:58 GMT

1. Running CHCP 65001 causes subsequent batch files not to be executed at all.

2. In my case, the offending character is "ö", which is contained in the 437 code page, so I don't understand why the batch file fails if it contains that character. Works fine if I copy/paste into the command prompt.

3. Running CMD /U means subsequent commands in the batch file will be ignored.

Mike