Invalid encoding for project files for Visual Studio

[ghost]

What kind of issue is this?

• PlatformIO Core.
  If you’ve found a bug, please provide an information below.

---

Configuration

Operating system: Windows 10 x64

PlatformIO Version (platformio --version): 4.0.3

Description of problem

When generating project files for Visual Studio, PIO adds 6 bytes C3 AF C2 BB C2 BF at the beginning of platformio.vcxproj and platformio.vcxproj.filters files. These 6 bytes, if decoded as UTF-8, become characters , which look exactly like UTF-8 Byte Order Mark decoded using CP1252.
Trying to open the project file in Visual Studio 2019 as is gives the following error:

Removing these 6 bytes or replacing them with EF BB BF, a correct value for UTF-8 BOM, fixes it.

Steps to Reproduce

1. mkdir test
2. cd test
3. platformio init --ide visualstudio -b uno

Actual Results

platformio.vcxproj (as UTF-8)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="12.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
   ...

Expected Results

platformio.vcxproj (as UTF-8)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Project DefaultTargets="Build" ToolsVersion="12.0" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
  <PropertyGroup>
   ...

Additional info

Python 3.7.3
Visual Studio Community 16.3.6

[ivankravets]

@valeros could you reproduce it?

[valeros]

Many thanks for reporting! Fixed in the development branch.