Handle French Characters in Java

Question

I Have a Page where I search for a term and it is displaying perfect. Whatever character type it is.

Now when I have few checkboxes in JSP and I check it and submit. In these checkboxes I have one box name like ABC Farmacéutica Corporation.

When I click on submit button, I am calling a function and will set all parameters to a form and will submit that form. (I tested putting alert for the special character display before submit and it is displaying good).

Now, coming to the Java end, I use Springs Frame work. When I print the term in controller, then it is displayed like ABC Farmacéutica Corporation.

Please help... Thanks in advance.

EDIT :

Please try this sample Example

import java.net.*;
class sample{
    public static void main(String[] args){
        try{
            String aaa = "ABC Farmacéutica Corporation";
            String bbb = "ABC Farmacéutica Corporation";

            aaa = URLEncoder.encode(aaa, "UTF-8");
            bbb = URLDecoder.decode(bbb, "UTF-8");

            System.out.println("aaa   "+aaa);
            System.out.println("bbb   "+bbb);

        }catch(Exception e){
            System.out.println(e);      
        }
    }
}

I am getting output as,

aaa   PiSA+Farmac%C3%A9utica+Mexicana+Corporativo
bbb   PiSA Farmacéutica Mexicana Corporativo

Try to print the string aaa as it is.

Answer 1

You get "ABC Farmacéutica Corporation" because the string you receive from the client is ISO-8859-1, you need to convert it into UTF-8 before you URL decode it. Like this :

bbb = URLDecoder.decode(new String(bbb.getBytes("ISO-8859-1"), "UTF-8"), "UTF-8");

NOTE : some encodings cannot be converted from and to different encodings without risking data loss. For example, you cannot convert Thaï characters (TIS-620) to another encoding, not even UTF-8. For this reason, avoid converting from one encoding to another, unless ultimately necessary (ie. the data comes from an external, third perty, or proprietary source, etc.) This is only a solution on how to convert from one source to another, knowing the source encoding.