Easy Fixing File Encoding (in Vim)

I have received some files from Japanese clients and have trouble with reading it through Vim, it looks like a mess:

Check the file by file -bicommand, and it returns:

text/plain; charset=unknown-8bit

Fortunately, I’ve been informed that the file is encoded by Shift JIS, saved a hell lot of my time to figure out the encoding.

Shift JIS (Shift Japanese Industrial Standards, also SJIS, Shift_JIS) is a character encoding for the Japanese language, it has been replaced by CP932 for better compatibility in certain cases.

According to Vim Tips Wiki, one can reload a file using a different encoding if Vim was not able to detect the correct encoding.

So, here is the simple solution in Vim, just use :e ++enc=sjis or :e ++enc=cp932:

References

• Shift JIS and Code page 932 on Wikipedia.
• Vim Tips Wiki
• My Blog