Effective way to find any file's Encoding

Yes is a most frequent question, and this matter is vague for me and since I don't know much about it.

But i would like a very precise way to find a files Encoding. So precise as Notepad++ is.

The StreamReader.CurrentEncoding property rarely returns the correct text file encoding for me. I've had greater success determining a file's endianness, by analyzing its byte order mark (BOM). If the file does not have a BOM, this cannot determine the file's encoding.

*UPDATED 4/08/2020 to include UTF-32LE detection and return correct encoding for UTF-32BE

/// <summary>
/// Determines a text file's encoding by analyzing its byte order mark (BOM).
/// Defaults to ASCII when detection of the text file's endianness fails.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="filename">The text file to analyze.</param>
/// <returns>The detected encoding.</returns>
public static Encoding GetEncoding(string filename)
{
    // Read the BOM
    var bom = new byte[4];
    using (var file = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
    {
        file.Read(bom, 0, 4);
    }

    // Analyze the BOM
    if (bom[0] == 0x2b && bom[1] == 0x2f && bom[2] == 0x76) return Encoding.UTF7;
    if (bom[0] == 0xef && bom[1] == 0xbb && bom[2] == 0xbf) return Encoding.UTF8;
    if (bom[0] == 0xff && bom[1] == 0xfe && bom[2] == 0 && bom[3] == 0) return Encoding.UTF32; //UTF-32LE
    if (bom[0] == 0xff && bom[1] == 0xfe) return Encoding.Unicode; //UTF-16LE
    if (bom[0] == 0xfe && bom[1] == 0xff) return Encoding.BigEndianUnicode; //UTF-16BE
    if (bom[0] == 0 && bom[1] == 0 && bom[2] == 0xfe && bom[3] == 0xff) return new UTF32Encoding(true, true);  //UTF-32BE

    // We actually have no idea what the encoding is if we reach this point, so
    // you may wish to return null instead of defaulting to ASCII
    return Encoding.ASCII;
}

The following code works fine for me, using the StreamReader class:

  using (var reader = new StreamReader(fileName, defaultEncodingIfNoBom, true))
  {
      reader.Peek(); // you need this!
      var encoding = reader.CurrentEncoding;
  }

The trick is to use the Peek call, otherwise, .NET has not done anything (and it hasn't read the preamble, the BOM). Of course, if you use any other ReadXXX call before checking the encoding, it works too.

If the file has no BOM, then the defaultEncodingIfNoBom encoding will be used. There is also a StreamReader without this overload method (in this case, the Default (ANSI) encoding will be used as defaultEncodingIfNoBom), but I recommand to define what you consider the default encoding in your context.

I have tested this successfully with files with BOM for UTF8, UTF16/Unicode (LE & BE) and UTF32 (LE & BE). It does not work for UTF7.

Providing the implementation details for the steps proposed by @CodesInChaos:

1) Check if there is a Byte Order Mark

2) Check if the file is valid UTF8

3) Use the local "ANSI" codepage (ANSI as Microsoft defines it)

Step 2 works because most non ASCII sequences in codepages other that UTF8 are not valid UTF8. https://stackoverflow.com/a/4522251/867248 explains the tactic in more details.

using System; using System.IO; using System.Text;

// Using encoding from BOM or UTF8 if no BOM found,
// check if the file is valid, by reading all lines
// If decoding fails, use the local "ANSI" codepage

public string DetectFileEncoding(Stream fileStream)
{
    var Utf8EncodingVerifier = Encoding.GetEncoding("utf-8", new EncoderExceptionFallback(), new DecoderExceptionFallback());
    using (var reader = new StreamReader(fileStream, Utf8EncodingVerifier,
           detectEncodingFromByteOrderMarks: true, leaveOpen: true, bufferSize: 1024))
    {
        string detectedEncoding;
        try
        {
            while (!reader.EndOfStream)
            {
                var line = reader.ReadLine();
            }
            detectedEncoding = reader.CurrentEncoding.BodyName;
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            // Failed to decode the file using the BOM/UT8. 
            // Assume it's local ANSI
            detectedEncoding = "ISO-8859-1";
        }
        // Rewind the stream
        fileStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
        return detectedEncoding;
   }
}


[Test]
public void Test1()
{
    Stream fs = File.OpenRead(@".\TestData\TextFile_ansi.csv");
    var detectedEncoding = DetectFileEncoding(fs);

    using (var reader = new StreamReader(fs, Encoding.GetEncoding(detectedEncoding)))
    {
       // Consume your file
        var line = reader.ReadLine();
        ...