Xml to jsp transformation

Question

Hi All,
I have an xml file created from database which contains certain fields in french.
Now using this file as input source and a xsl file i am creating a jsp. In the xml file all the french characters appear as in database, but after transformation into jsp i get encoding problems.
I am using StringBuffer and FileOutputStream to write to the xml file.
If I donot change the transformer OutputProperty my jsp displays fine in web server but French characters are all messed up.
If I use "utf-16" encoding in transformation
i.e if i set the transformer as follows:
transformer.setOutputProperty("encoding", "utf-16");
characters in the jsp generated are all correct but I cannot bring up my jsp in web server.
Any suggestions please.
Thanks
Rajeev

Answer 1

Okay, you know how to set the encoding in the transformer. That's one step. Another step is, you have to set the encoding in your OutputStream to be the same. You haven't showed how you're using your OutputStream, you just said you were using a FileOutputStream which surely must be a misprint, as the rest of your post suggests you are sending the XML to the JSP's response. Also, you have to set the encoding of your HTTP response to be the same encoding you used everywhere else, using its setCharacterEncoding() method.
I would suggest ISO-8859-1 for your encoding, since that covers all Western European characters and all browsers understand it.