Converting UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1 in Java - how to keep it as single byte

Question

Hi, I am trying to convert a string encoded in java in UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1. Say for example, in the string 'âabcd' 'â' is represented in ISO-8859-1 as E2. In UTF-8 it is represented as two bytes. C3 A2 I believe. When I do a getbytes(encoding) and then create a new string with the bytes in ISO-8859-1 encoding, I get a two different chars. â. Is there any other way to do this so as to keep the character the same i.e. âabcd?

Answer 1

Look into the classes in java.nio.charset.

Answer 2

byte[] iso88591Data = theString.getBytes("ISO-8859-1");

Will do the trick. From your description it seems as if you're trying to "store an ISO-8859-1 String". String objects in Java are always implicitely encoded in UTF-16. There's no way to change that encoding.

What you can do, 'though is to get the bytes that constitute some other encoding of it (using the .getBytes() method as shown above).

Answer 3

If you're dealing with character encodings other than UTF-16, you shouldn't be using java.lang.String or the char primitive -- you should only be using byte[] arrays or ByteBuffer objects. Then, you can use java.nio.charset.Charset to convert between encodings:

Charset utf8charset = Charset.forName("UTF-8");
Charset iso88591charset = Charset.forName("ISO-8859-1");

ByteBuffer inputBuffer = ByteBuffer.wrap(new Byte[]{(byte)0xC3, (byte)0xA2});

// decode UTF-8
CharBuffer data = utf8charset.decode(inputBuffer);

// encode ISO-8559-1
ByteBuffer outputBuffer = iso88591charset.encode(data);
byte[] outputData = outputBuffer.array();

Answer 4

Starting with a set of bytes which encode a string using UTF-8, creates a string from that data, then get some bytes encoding the string in a different encoding:

    byte[] utf8bytes = { (byte)0xc3, (byte)0xa2, 0x61, 0x62, 0x63, 0x64 };
    Charset utf8charset = Charset.forName("UTF-8");
    Charset iso88591charset = Charset.forName("ISO-8859-1");

    String string = new String ( utf8bytes, utf8charset );

    System.out.println(string);

    // "When I do a getbytes(encoding) and "
    byte[] iso88591bytes = string.getBytes(iso88591charset);

    for ( byte b : iso88591bytes )
        System.out.printf("%02x ", b);

    System.out.println();

    // "then create a new string with the bytes in ISO-8859-1 encoding"
    String string2 = new String ( iso88591bytes, iso88591charset );

    // "I get a two different chars"
    System.out.println(string2);

this outputs strings and the iso88591 bytes correctly:

âabcd 
e2 61 62 63 64 
âabcd

So your byte array wasn't paired with the correct encoding:

    String failString = new String ( utf8bytes, iso88591charset );

    System.out.println(failString);

Outputs

âabcd

(either that, or you just wrote the utf8 bytes to a file and read them elsewhere as iso88591)

Answer 5

Can anyone help me out please,

A friend needs this Ŭ·¡½º ¼±Åà converted to english.

he says that is is written in iso-8559 code but i dont know how to convert it for him.....

can anyone here convert it please

Answer 6

NEVER MIND,

it means Class Selection in english.

Word is wonderful :)

Answer 7

evict non ISO-8859-1 characters, will be replace by '?' (before send to a ISO-8859-1 DB by example):

utf8String = new String ( utf8String.getBytes(), "ISO-8859-1" );

Answer 8

÷êíeî…¬$•)às9Ó×2;Ϧ^nv¬X˜œÔÎÅ©êÔèí5ו¾lyÿÊMO:PžIÂß]®C‘ÞX™cïU¡†Îô¯&–<‰‚”P\šæxFœÿç,Æ”šNÕ£—P,ªý.§|#­„¾âäÐþÞå15êsW¿iïÆŸSV¡À¡Ê~÷d£Jk¥hï"¿Ë T¡)ÞÜÝœÜç æ ÑGì0·=(yW}¦~@ß‚a˜§’׫MÞe‘¥õô5$¹e û¸"™Ù:SÅ5ÿrd­Ã…ÙÖå¼:u9®6/õî :š-+Ë@Àÿ§¶!Êê\Q¦ÌŠgj3·Ö·>³¤V:"65%Q#1œª ¦CcR!ãÛ¥¹wéYGÔ1Zq±ƒ"jtÔ*j2G¦ÝìÊ£ÜU¸yÕƒi4†'„ŽMÁÎ2,’#bzTyÕÿÛx§Åí~B+Þˆüt™6zÑ zñÄÌóžJMÄöj«yö£

How do i change that to something i can read