# Re: help request: unable to merge UTF-16-LE "text" file

1 messages from 2024-01-12 to 2024-01-12. Participants: Michael Litwak.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/60737

## Michael Litwak, 2024-01-12 20:34

Subject: Re: help request: unable to merge UTF-16-LE "text" file
Message-ID: <SJ0PR10MB569341D4236E1438E49EA1D9FA6F2@SJ0PR10MB5693.namprd10.prod.outlook.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/SJ0PR10MB569341D4236E1438E49EA1D9FA6F2%40SJ0PR10MB5693.namprd10.prod.outlook.com

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This is in reply to the message at 
https://lore.kernel.org/all/20220422184211.5z67sxrgq2zm3tvd@compass/#t

Sent via MS Outlook - hope this reaches the online thread.

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On Windows, if you do

    git add

from an ordinary Command Prompt, it will fail to call iconv.exe to perform
the necessary text conversion.  I.E. your UTF-16LE with BOM file will not be
properly converted by Git to UTF-8 for its internal storage, leading to
subsequent encoding errors.

So, in addition to setting the working-tree-encoding of the file to 
UTF-16LE-BOM in .gitattributes prior to adding the file, be sure to run:

    git add   

from a git bash console when adding such files.

- Michael


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