Redirecting ConsoleOutput containing pseudo-loc (unicode) strings in C#

Question

I'm running a console app (myApp.exe) which outputs a pseudo localized (unicode) string to the standard output. If I run this in a regular command prompt(cmd.exe), the unicode data gets lost. If I run this in a unicode command prompt(cmd.exe /u) or set the properties of the console to "Lucida Console" then the unicode string is maintained.

I'd like to run this app in C# and redirect the unicode string into a local variable. I'm using a Process object with RedirectStandardOutput = true, but the unicode string is always lost.

How can I specify to persist this unicode info?

        private static int RunDISM(string Args, out string ConsoleOutput)
        {
            Process process = new Process();
            process.StartInfo.FileName = "myApp.exe";
            process.StartInfo.Arguments = Args;

            try
            {
                process.StartInfo.CreateNoWindow = true;
                process.StartInfo.UseShellExecute = false;
                process.StartInfo.RedirectStandardOutput = true;
                process.StartInfo.WorkingDirectory = Environment.CurrentDirectory;

                process.Start();
                process.WaitForExit(Int32.MaxValue);
            }
            catch (Exception e)
            {
                WEX.Logging.Interop.Log.Assert("Failure while starting or running process.\nERROR: " + e.Message);
                ConsoleOutput = null;
                return EXITCODE_ERROR;
            }

            ConsoleOutput = process.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd();
            return process.ExitCode;
        }

Answer 1

It looks like you need to change the encoding on the StandardOutput stream from your console app, using the StandardOutputEncoding property on ProcessStartInfo. Try adding the following code inside your try/catch block, before starting the process:

process.StartInfo.StandardOutputEncoding = Encoding.Unicode;

You might have to experiment with different encodings to see which is the right one for your case.

Answer 2

Get the bytes out and see if they make any sense:

var b = p.StandardOutput.CurrentEncoding.GetBytes(p.StandardOutput.ReadToEnd());

Once you figured out the actual encoding you can use the standard encoding APIs to convert the bytes into a string.