Issue Decoding for a specific charset

Question

Hi all, I'm trying to decode a char and get back the same char. Following is my simple test. I'm confused, If i have to encode or decode. Tried both. Both print the same result.

Any suggestions are greatly helpful.

char inpData = '†';
String str = Character.toString((char) inpData);
byte b[] = str.getBytes(Charset.forName("MacRoman"));
System.out.println(b[0]); // prints -96

String decData = Integer.toString(b[0]);
CharsetDecoder decoder = Charset.forName("MacRoman").newDecoder();
ByteBuffer inBuffer = ByteBuffer.wrap(decData.getBytes());
CharBuffer result = decoder.decode(inBuffer);
System.out.println(result.toString()); // prints -96, expecting to print †

CharsetEncoder encoder = Charset.forName("MacRoman").newEncoder();
ByteBuffer bbuf = encoder.encode(CharBuffer.wrap(decData));
result = decoder.decode(bbuf);
System.out.println(result.toString());// prints -96, expecting to print †

Thank you.

Answer 1

String decData = Integer.toString(b[0]);

This probably gets you the "-96" output in the last two examples. try

String decData = new String(b, "MacRoman");

Apart from that, keep in mind that System.out.println uses your system-charset to print out strings anyway. For a better test, consider writing your Strings to a file using your specific charset with something like

FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream("test.txt"); 
OutputStreamWriter writer = new OutputStreamWriter(fos, "MacRoman");
writer.write(result.toString());
writer.close();

Answer 2

When you do String decData = Integer.toString(b[0]);, you create the string "-96" and that is the string you're encoding/decoding. Not the original char.

You have to change your String back to a byte before.

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To get your character back as a char from the -96 you have to do this :

    String string = new String(b, "MacRoman");
    char specialChar = string.charAt(0);

With this your reversing your first transformation from char -> String -> byte[0] by doing byte[0] -> String -> char[0]

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If you have the String "-96", you must change first your string into a byte with :

byte b = Byte.parseByte("-96");