Introduction
Encoding is an important part of any text document or software application and it must adhere to standard unicode formats. If you are experiencing a problem with texts that contain non-standard characters you may be dealing with an issue known as 'Blob is Not a Valid UTF-8'. This error usually arise when text data is read from a file, such as a markdown document, that is not encoded using a unicode-compatible character encoding system, such as UTF-8. In this guide, we will look at why Blob is Not a Valid UTF-8 error occurs and provide a step-by-step solution to fixing this issue in your markdown document.
What is UTF-8
UTF-8 (8-bit Universal Character Set Transformation Format) is a character encoding system with variable length that is used to represent unicode characters. It is one of the most widely-used encoding systems and is the default character encoding system used by the vast majority of web browsers and mail clients. It is also important to note that UTF-8 is the only character encoding system that is supported by the HTML5 standard.
Problem: Blob Is Not a Valid UTF-8
When retrieving text data from a file that was not encoded using UTF-8, the computer will not be able to recognize or process these characters. As a result, you will likely receive the error message “Blob is Not a Valid UTF-8”.
Most often this error message will appear when attempted to read a text file from disk with the .md extension, which stands for markdown. Markdown is a popular plain text formatting syntax used to create rich text documents, such as blog posts, technical documents, and online tutorials.
Solution to Fix 'Blob is Not a Valid UTF-8'
In order to fix the 'Blob Is Not a Valid UTF-8' error when retrieving data from a markdown document, the document must first be encoded using a compatible character encoding system such as UTF-8. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to do this:
- Open the markdown document with a text editor such as Sublime Text.
- Go to File > Save As and select UTF-8 from the drop-down list.
- Click the Save button to save the document with the UTF-8 character encoding.
- Try retrieving the text data from the document once again.
FAQ
Q. What is the difference between UTF-16 and UTF-8?
A. UTF-16 and UTF-8 are both unicode encoding systems, used to represent characters with varying length. The main difference between them is that UTF-16 has two bytes per character while UTF-8 has only one.
Q. Does markdown support other character encoding systems?
A. No, markdown only supports UTF-8 and any other character encoding system will not be recognized or processed by markdownparser.
Q. What is the difference between a blob and a markdown document?
A. A blob is a collection of binary data stored as a single object. A markdown document is a text document that uses the markdown syntax to create rich text formatted documents.
Q. What is the best practice when dealing with 'Blob Is Not a Valid UTF-8' error?
A. The best practice for dealing with this error is to always make sure that the markdown documents are encoded using UTF-8. This can be done by going to File > Save As and selecting UTF-8 from the drop-down list.
Q. How do I know if my markdown document is encoded using UTF-8?
A. You can easily check the character encoding of a document by opening it with a text editor, then going to File > Save As and looking for the option that reads UTF-8.