How to get and set default Character encoding or Charset in Java

Default Character encoding in Java or charset is the character encoding used by JVM to convert bytes into Strings or characters when you don't define java system property "file.encoding". Java gets character encoding by calling System.getProperty("file.encoding","UTF-8") at the time of JVM start-up. So if Java doesn't get any file.encoding attribute it uses "UTF-8" character encoding for all practical purpose e.g. on String.getBytes() or Charset.defaultCharSet().

Most important point to remember is that Java caches character encoding or value of system property "file.encoding" in most of its core classes like InputStreamReader which needs character encoding after JVM started. so if you change system property "file.encoding" programatically you don't see desired effect and that's why you should always work with your own character encoding provided to your application and if its need to be set than set character encoding or charset while you start JVM. In this Java tutorial we will see couple of different way by which we can set default character encoding or charset of Java and how to retrieve value of charset inside java program.

Default Character encoding or Charset in Java

This article is in continuation of my post on Java String like Why String is immutable in Java or How SubString method works in java. If you haven’t read those you may find interesting.

What is character encoding in Java

For those who are not very familiar with character encoding or char-set in Java here is a layman's introduction "since every data in computer is represented in bytes and Strings are essentially collection of charaters, so to convert bytes into character JVM needs to know which combination of byte represent which character and this is what character encoding tells JVM. Since there are many languages in world other than English like Hindi, Mandarin, Japanese Kanji etc and so many characters, same combination of bytes can represent different characters in different character encoding and that's why using correct character encoding is must while converting bytes into String in Java".

How to get Default character encoding in Java ?

There are multiple ways to get default character encoding in Java like by using system property “file.encoding” or by using java.nio.CharSet class. You can choose whatever suits your need. Let’s see them in detail.

1) "file.encoding" system property

Easiest way to get default character encoding in Java is to call System.getProperty("file.encoding"), which will return default character encoding if JVM started with -Dfile.encoding property or program has not called System.setProperty("file.encoding, encoding). in later case it may just give value of that system property while various

java.nio.Charset provides a convenient static method Charset.defaultCharset() which returns default character encoding in Java. Check example of getting default char encoding in java using Charset in code section.

3) by using Code InputStreamReader.getEncoding()

This is kind of shortcut where you use default constructor of InputStreamReader and than later gets which character encoding it has used by calling reader.getEncoding() . See the code example of how to get default character encoding using InputStreamReader.getEncoding() method in code section.

How to set Default character encoding in Java ?

Just like different ways of getting default character encoding or charset in Java there are many ways to set default charset in Java. Here are some of  the way:

1. Using System property "file.encoding"

by providing file.encoding system property when JVM starts e.g. java -Dfile.encoding="UTF-8"  HelloWorld.

2. Using Environment variable "JAVA_TOOLS_OPTIONS"

If by anyway you don't have control how JVM starts up may be JVM is starting through some scripts which doesn't provide any way to accept system properties. you can set environment variable JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS to -Dfile.encoding="UTF-16" or any other character encoding and it will picked up any JVM starts in your windows machine. JVM will also print "Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF16" on console to indicate that it has picked JAVA_TOOS_OPTIONS. here is example of setting default character encoding using JAVA_TOOLS_OPTIONS

test@system:~/java java HelloWorld

Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF16

You can also check my post 10 JVM Options developer should know for more on JVM Options

Code Example to Get and Set Default Character Encoding Java

Here is code example of getting and setting default character encoding in Java:

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;

import java.io.FileNotFoundException;

import java.io.IOException;

import java.io.InputStream;

import java.io.InputStreamReader;

import java.io.UnsupportedEncodingException;

import java.nio.charset.Charset;

public class CharacterEncodingExample {

    public static void main(String args[]) throws FileNotFoundException, UnsupportedEncodingException, IOException {

        String defaultCharacterEncoding = System.getProperty("file.encoding");

        System.out.println("defaultCharacterEncoding by property: " + defaultCharacterEncoding);

        System.out.println("defaultCharacterEncoding by code: " + getDefaultCharEncoding());

        System.out.println("defaultCharacterEncoding by charSet: " + Charset.defaultCharset());

      

        System.setProperty("file.encoding", "UTF-16");

      

        System.out.println("defaultCharacterEncoding by property after updating file.encoding : " + System.getProperty("file.encoding"));

        System.out.println("defaultCharacterEncoding by code after updating file.encoding : " + getDefaultCharEncoding());

        System.out.println("defaultCharacterEncoding by java.nio.Charset after updating file.encoding : " + Charset.defaultCharset());

    public static String getDefaultCharEncoding(){

        byte [] bArray = {'w'};

        InputStream is = new ByteArrayInputStream(bArray);

        InputStreamReader reader = new InputStreamReader(is);

        String defaultCharacterEncoding = reader.getEncoding();

        return defaultCharacterEncoding;

defaultCharacterEncoding by property: UTF-8

defaultCharacterEncoding by code: UTF8

defaultCharacterEncoding by charSet: UTF-8

defaultCharacterEncoding by property after updating file.encoding : UTF-16

defaultCharacterEncoding by code after updating file.encoding : UTF8

defaultCharacterEncoding by java.nio.Charset after updating file.encoding : UTF-8

Important points to note:

1) JVM caches value of default character encoding once JVM starts and so is the case for default constructors of InputStreamReader and other core Java classes. So calling System.setProperty("file.encoding" , "UTF-16") may not have desire effect.

2) Always work with your own character encoding if you can, that is more accurate and precise way of converting bytes to Strings.

That’s all on how to get default character encoding in Java and how to set it. This becomes more important when you are 

writing international application which supports multiple languages. I indeed come across character encoding issues while 

writing reports in  kanji (Japanese) language which I plan to share in another post, but good knowledge of Character 

encoding like UTF-8, UTF-16 or ISO-8859-5 and how Java supports Character Encoding in 

String will certainly help.

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