Text Encoding Decoding Examples
Reading a UTF8 saved file with different encoding
Below is an example of a text file content that includes a variety of characters from different character sets. This file contains English text, accented characters, Cyrillic characters, Greek characters, Chinese characters, and special symbols. While saving the file via editor, UTF8 is used.
example.txt file contents
Hello, World!
Accented characters: á, é, í, ó, ú, ü, ñ, ç
Cyrillic characters: А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ж, З, И, Й
Greek characters: Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, Ζ, Η, Θ, Ι, Κ
Chinese characters: 你好，世界！
Special symbols: €, ©, ™, ∑, √, ≈, π, ÷, ≤, ≥
Emoji: 😀, 🚀, 🌍, ❤️, 👍package encoding_decoding;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
public class EncodingDecodingFiles {
public static void main(String [] args) {
try {
Path path = Path.of("/Users/pranay/Documents/Project/Personal/sample-java-project/src/main/resources/txt/example.txt");
byte[] encoded = Files.readAllBytes(path);
// UTF_8
String string_utf8 = new String(encoded, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
System.out.println("\n-----Printing UTF_8 content-----");
System.out.println(string_utf8);
// UTF_16
String string_utf16 = new String(encoded, StandardCharsets.UTF_16);
System.out.println("\n-----Printing UTF_16 content-----");
System.out.println(string_utf16);
// ISO_8859_1
String string_iso_8859_1 = new String(encoded, StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1);
System.out.println("\n-----Printing ISO_8859_1 content-----");
System.out.println(string_iso_8859_1);
// US_ASCII
String string_ascii = new String(encoded, StandardCharsets.US_ASCII);
System.out.println("\n-----Printing US_ASCII content-----");
System.out.println(string_ascii);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Writing a string content to a file with specified encoding
package encoding_decoding;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.charset.Charset;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
public class EncodingDecodingFiles {
public static void main(String [] args) {
try {
String content = """
Hello, World!
Accented characters: á, é, í, ó, ú, ü, ñ, ç
Cyrillic characters: А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ж, З, И, Й
Greek characters: Α, Β, Γ, Δ, Ε, Ζ, Η, Θ, Ι, Κ
Chinese characters: 你好，世界！
Special symbols: €, ©, ™, ∑, √, ≈, π, ÷, ≤, ≥
Emoji: 😀, 🚀, 🌍, ❤️, 👍
""";
String baseFilePath = "/Users/pranayp/Documents/Project/Personal/sample-java-project/src/main/resources/txt/";
// Save as UTF-8
Path pathToSaveUtf8File = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-UTF8.txt");
Files.write(pathToSaveUtf8File, content.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
// Save as ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1)
Path pathToSaveIso88591File = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-ISO-8859-1.txt");
Files.write(pathToSaveIso88591File, content.getBytes(StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1));
// Save as Windows-1252
Path pathToSaveWindows1252File = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-Windows-1252.txt");
Files.write(pathToSaveWindows1252File, content.getBytes(Charset.forName("Windows-1252")));
// Save as UTF-16
Path pathToSaveUtf16File = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-UTF16.txt");
Files.write(pathToSaveUtf16File, content.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_16));
// Save as ASCII
Path pathToSaveAsciiFile = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-ASCII.txt");
Files.write(pathToSaveAsciiFile, content.getBytes(StandardCharsets.US_ASCII));
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Reading the above saved file in respective character set
package encoding_decoding;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.nio.charset.Charset;
import java.nio.charset.StandardCharsets;
import java.nio.file.Files;
import java.nio.file.Path;
public class EncodingDecodingFiles {
public static void main(String [] args) {
try {
String baseFilePath = "/Users/pranayp/Documents/Project/Personal/sample-java-project/src/main/resources/txt/";
// UTF_8
Path path1 = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-UTF8.txt");
byte[] encoded1 = Files.readAllBytes(path1);
String string1 = new String(encoded1, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
System.out.println("\n-----Printing UTF_8 content-----");
System.out.println(string1);
// UTF_16
Path path2 = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-UTF16.txt");
byte[] encoded2 = Files.readAllBytes(path2);
String string2 = new String(encoded2, StandardCharsets.UTF_16);
System.out.println("\n-----Printing UTF_16 content-----");
System.out.println(string2);
// ISO-8859-1
Path path3 = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-ISO-8859-1.txt");
byte[] encoded3 = Files.readAllBytes(path3);
String string3 = new String(encoded3, StandardCharsets.ISO_8859_1);
System.out.println("\n-----Printing ISO_8859_1 content-----");
System.out.println(string3);
// US_ASCII
Path path4 = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-ASCII.txt");
byte[] encoded4 = Files.readAllBytes(path4);
String string4 = new String(encoded4, StandardCharsets.US_ASCII);
System.out.println("\n-----Printing US_ASCII content-----");
System.out.println(string4);
// Windows-1252
Path path5 = Path.of(baseFilePath + "example-Windows-1252.txt");
byte[] encoded5 = Files.readAllBytes(path5);
String string5 = new String(encoded5, Charset.forName("Windows-1252"));
System.out.println("\n-----Printing Windows-1252 content-----");
System.out.println(string5);
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
Internationalization and Localization
Text encoding is essential for supporting multiple languages (i18n) and localizing applications (l10n). Java’s support for Unicode ensures that applications can handle diverse character sets seamlessly.
import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;
public class InternationalizationExample {
public static void main(String[] args) {
String chineseText = "你好，世界！";
try {
byte[] utf8Bytes = chineseText.getBytes("UTF-8");
String decodedText = new String(utf8Bytes, "UTF-8");
System.out.println("Decoded Chinese Text: " + decodedText);
} catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
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