java.util.Properties and Cp1250

Question

Can I use java.util.Properties with encoding different then default?

Answer 1

Not unless you

1. are running java 6 or later
2. control the code loading the properties file, and can use a Reader. See the javadoc.

This is a pretty annoying flaw in the spec. There are several workarounds, probably the simplest being to auto-generate a unicode-escaped compliant .properties file from an encoding-appropriate (cp1250, utf-8, whatever) source.

Java ships with a transcoder called native2ascii to do this for you:

There are some aged RFEs on this subject:

• Provide UTF-8 based properties resource bundles - 2004
• Need a load(Reader)/store(Writer) interface for Properties class - 1997

Answer 2

If your properties file is available at build time, you can also convert it in your ant script using the native2ascii task:

<property name="javac.source.encoding" value="Cp1250"/>

<native2ascii src="${src.dir}" dest="${classes.dir}"
   encoding="${javac.source.encoding}"
   includes="**/*.properties"/>

Answer 3

Yes, but then you have to be careful to use the load() and store() methods that take a Reader/Writer, and explicitly construct those by using an InputStreamReader/OutputStreamWriter with the correct encoding.

This may not be possible with libraries that use properties files implicitly.

Edit: The methods described above have only been introduced in Java 1.6 - for older versions, you're out of luck, as dsadinoff wrote.