Special characters are not properly round-tripped when using the Wikipedia API

Question

I'm messing with the Wikipedia API trying to find the English page from a Dutch one. I get this in XML format but when I want to update the MySQL database special characters getting converted so the link becomes invalid.

For example:

The API returns this: Möhrenbach

When I save it, it becomes this: Möhrenbach

Another Example

The API returns this: Sarandi, Paraná

When I save it, it becomes this: Sarandi, Paraná

The Code I Use

'SourceString is the XML response from Wikipedia Api
Dim xmlDoc As New XmlDocument()
xmlDoc.LoadXml(sourceString)

Dim node As XmlNode = xmlDoc.SelectSingleNode("//api//query//search//p[1]")
If node IsNot Nothing Then
   If node.Attributes("titlesnippet") IsNot Nothing Then
      Dim titlesnippet As String = node.Attributes("titlesnippet").Value
      If InStr(titlesnippet, "searchmatch") > 0 Then
         WikiEN = node.Attributes("title").Value
      End If
   End If
End If

With this code the response Möhrenbach becomes Möhrenbach in VB.NET.

How can I save the right response?

Answer 1

You have to set the encoding for WebClient:

Dim webclient As System.Net.WebClient = New System.Net.WebClient()
webclient.Encoding = Encoding.UTF8   '<---

With webclient.Encoding = Encoding.UTF8 everything comes over as should.