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From: "Andoni" <andoni@indigo.ie>
To: "Tomcat Users List" <tomcat-user@jakarta.apache.org>
Subject: How to UTF-8 your site.
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2003 12:26:33 +0100
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Hello,

I have recently completed the torturous process of translating my =
web-site into 16 European languages.  Having had lots of advice from =
this list and other sources I have come down to a few conclusions about =
what a Java / Tomcat web-site needs in order to fully support UTF-8.

These are:

1.
JSP pages must inlcude the header:

<%@ page
 contentType=3D"text/html; charset=3DUTF-8"
%>

2.
In the Catalina.bat (windows) catalina.sh (windows) =
apache$jakarta_config.com (OpenVMS), file there must be a switch added =
to the call to java.exe.  The switch is:

-Dfile.encoding=3DUTF-8

I cannot find documentation for this environment variable anywhere or =
what it actually does but it is essential.

3.
For translation of inputs coming back from the browser there must be a =
method that translates from the browser's ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8.  It seems =
to me that -1 is used in all regions as I have had people in countries =
such as Greece & Bulgaria test this and they always send input back in =
-1 encoding.  The method which you will use constantly should go =
something like this:

 /**
  * Convert ISO8859-1 format string (which is the default sent by IE
  * to the UTF-8 format that the database is in.
  */
 public String toUTF8(String isoString)
 {
  String utf8String =3D null;
  if (null !=3D isoString && !isoString.equals(""))
  {
   try
   {
    byte[] stringBytesISO =3D isoString.getBytes("ISO-8859-1");
    utf8String =3D new String(stringBytesISO, "UTF-8");
   }
   catch(UnsupportedEncodingException e)
   {
    // As we can't translate just send back the best guess.
    System.out.println("UnsupportedEncodingException is: " + =
e.getMessage());
    utf8String =3D isoString;
   }
  }
  else
  {
   utf8String =3D isoString;
  }
  return utf8String;
 }


I have found that these three steps are all that is necessary to make =
your site accept any language that UTF-8 can work with.  I extend my =
thanks to those of you on the Tomcat users list who helped me find these =
little gems.

Kind regards,

Andoni.
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