Work with locales and character encodings

Internationalization support for this product relies on that provided by the Java Platform, Standard Edition (JSE). Support varies by platform.

• Verify that the operating system on which the application server is installed supports the locales and encodings that you plan to use.

  Java internationalization support might use underlying services of the operating system. For example, if user IDs for the server are expected to contain non-English characters, verify the operating system is configured to process those characters.

• Plan for encoding changes as necessary.

  Consider differences in encoding support among operating system subcomponents. Although this product and the Java platform are based on Unicode encoding, it is not always possible to run applications in a purely Unicode environment.

• Set the console.encoding property as necessary.

Results

If the application produces an UnsupportedEncodingException exception, check the operating system documentation to determine if the target operating system supports the required encoding and adjust the runtime environment as needed. Use the converter.properties file as appropriate to map an unsupported character set to a supported character set. A typical converter.properties file appears below:

Shift_JIS=CP943C
EUC-JP=Cp33722C
EUC-JP=Cp33722C
EUC-KR=Cp970
EUC-TW=Cp964
Big5=Co950
GB2312=Cp1386
ISO-2022-KR=ISO2022KR

The converter.properties file implements a method for specifying a content type header field that browsers would understand (such as, SHIFT_JIS) and a writer that can output characters correctly (such as, Cp943c).

Example

For example, on the Windows platform, the command prompt runs in a Windows code page. Not all Windows code pages are supported by the Java platform, so it is possible to get a Java exception when running a command-line program, such as wsadmin, in an unsupported code page. To avoid exceptions, use the chcp command to explicitly set the code page to an encoding that is supported by the Java platform.

• Before command-line calls, change the code page.

  For example, Arabic code page 720 is not supported by the Java platform, but the Arabic code page for Windows (Cp1256) systems is. Type chcp 1256

• When starting a localized application from a command prompt, set the console.encoding property.

  For Arabic, pass the following parameter: -Dconsole.encoding=Cp1256

Related concepts

Globalization

Language versions offered by this product

Globalization: Resources for learning
Core Java Internationalization (Oracle Corporation)

Code Pages Supported by Windows (Microsoft Corporation)