When importing Excel files encoded in Shift-JIS, the "_"characters appear garbled in Spotfire.
Article ID: KB0137762
Updated On:
| Products | Versions |
|---|---|
| Spotfire | 14.0.4 |
| Spotfire | 14.0.4 |
Description
When excel files loads with Shift-JIS character encoding into Spotfire some character becomes garbled.
This occurs because Excel encodes certain patterns, specifically `_Xhhhh_` (where `hhhh` is a 4-digit hexadecimal number), to represent Unicode characters (U+hhhh). Spotfire utilizes a third-party library, Syncfusion XISIO, which reads these `_Xhhhh_` strings as Unicode characters directly, leading to the garbled display in Spotfire as it uses the output from XISIO without further modification.
The issue is not specific to Spotfire but rather to how Excel handles and encodes data within `.xlsx` files. It's important to note that the issue is primarily with the source Excel file's encoding behavior.
Environment
All
Resolution
The root cause of the garbled characters is related to how Excel encodes data in '.xlsx' files, specifically when certain Shift-JIS byte sequences that correspond to characters starting with '_X' are misinterpreted as the beginning of another encoding sequence.
The feasible workaround for this behavior is as follows :
1) Save the Excel file as a '.csv' file.
2) Import the `.csv` file into Spotfire and explicitly specify "UTF-8" as the file encoding when prompted.
Issue/Introduction
When importing an Excel file containing Shift-JIS character encoding into Spotfire, some characters particularly the underscore, may appear garbled.
