JSPs, UTF-8 & multibyte characters

Question

          In our project we have a situation where we must output some multibyte characters
          to a JSP page. The data is retrieved from an Oracle database using BEA ELink and
          XML (don't ask why). The XML-data is UTF-8 encoded, and the data seems to be ok
          down to the JSP level, because I can output it to a file and it's properly UTF-8
          encoded.
          But when I try to write the data to the final reply (using <%=dataObject.getData()%>
          the results definitely are not UTF-8 encoded. On the client browser they show
          up as garbage, occupying more than twice the actual length of the data. The response
          headers and META-tags are all set to UTF-8 encoding, and the browser is set to
          use UTF-8.
          The funny part is, that the string seems to be encoded twice or something similar
          as is shown by the next example:
          This is the correct UTF-8 byte sequence for the first twice characters (they are
          just generated data for debugging purposes):
          C3 89 C3 A5
          Which translates to Unicode characters 00C9 and 00E5.
          But on the final page that is sent to the client this sequence has been changed
          to:
          C3 83 E2 80 B0 C3 83 C2 A5
          Which just doesn't make sense since it shows up as five different garbage characters.
          Does anyone have any ideas what is causing the problem and any suggestions? What
          are those extra characters in the final encoding?
          .Pete.
          

Answer 1

It sounds like the Object.toString is coming back already encoded in UTF8,
          and thus the JSP writer encodes that UTF8 using UTF8 again, which is what
          you see. Try making the String value be:
          > ... characters 00C9 and 00E5.
          ... instead of:
          > C3 89 C3 A5
          Then it will be encoded correctly.
          Peace,
          Cameron Purdy
          Tangosol Inc.
          << Tangosol Server: How Weblogic applications are customized >>
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          "Petteri Räisänen" <[email protected]> wrote in message
          news:[email protected]...
          >
          > In our project we have a situation where we must output some multibyte
          characters
          > to a JSP page. The data is retrieved from an Oracle database using BEA
          ELink and
          > XML (don't ask why). The XML-data is UTF-8 encoded, and the data seems to
          be ok
          > down to the JSP level, because I can output it to a file and it's properly
          UTF-8
          > encoded.
          >
          > But when I try to write the data to the final reply (using
          <%=dataObject.getData()%>
          > the results definitely are not UTF-8 encoded. On the client browser they
          show
          > up as garbage, occupying more than twice the actual length of the data.
          The response
          > headers and META-tags are all set to UTF-8 encoding, and the browser is
          set to
          > use UTF-8.
          >
          > The funny part is, that the string seems to be encoded twice or something
          similar
          > as is shown by the next example:
          >
          > This is the correct UTF-8 byte sequence for the first twice characters
          (they are
          > just generated data for debugging purposes):
          >
          > C3 89 C3 A5
          >
          > Which translates to Unicode characters 00C9 and 00E5.
          >
          > But on the final page that is sent to the client this sequence has been
          changed
          > to:
          >
          > C3 83 E2 80 B0 C3 83 C2 A5
          >
          > Which just doesn't make sense since it shows up as five different garbage
          characters.
          >
          >
          > Does anyone have any ideas what is causing the problem and any
          suggestions? What
          > are those extra characters in the final encoding?
          >
          > Pete.