Question about special characters in XML documents

Question

Hi,
I need to create some XML documents based on documents containing elements containing strings containing accentuated and special characters such as ��� or Asian characters.
I have found the following code claiming that XML documents created by the xformer will have a utf-8 format:
// Write the DOM document to the file
Transformer xformer = TheTF.newTransformer();
xformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.ENCODING, "UTF-8");and I have found the InputSource object to be used to read UTF-8 XML documents:
InputSource in = new InputSource(new FileReader(filename));
in.setEncoding("UTF-8");Is this enough to make sure that accentuated and Asian characters (or any other characters) will be converted properly when creating and re-reading the XML document? If one of my elements contain the following text '���33445tata', will the string remain the same when re-read from the XML? Do I need more code to make sure that all conversion will be performed properly and transparently? If yes, can one provide an example?
Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Dr.Clap,
Thanks for your answer, but I am not really sure I understand you. I have performed a test to generate a simple document containing one element. An attribute containing some special characters is added to the element. The element text also contains specials characters.
When I generate the XML into a byte array input and print the content, I get:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="no"?><UTF8TEST BIBI="��ii��������">tre33������</UTF8TEST>When I parse the document, and print the result, I get:
-- Begin of Parsing
Element Name = UTF8TEST
Attribute Name = BIBI
Attribute Value = �ii����
Found text : tre33���
-- End of Parsingwhich is correct. I am worried by the ��ii� ������-like characters generated in the XML. Should I be worried or shouldn't I? Should I convert these into something looking a more like ASCII, or is this fine?
I am including the code of my example (excluding imports):
public class XMLUTF8_Test extends DefaultHandler {
    // Logger
    private final static Logger LOG = Logger.getLogger(XMLUTF8_Test.class.getName());
    // Static
    public static DocumentBuilderFactory DOCUMENT_BUILDER_FACTORY;
    public static DocumentBuilder DOCUMENT_BUILDER;
    public static TransformerFactory TRANSFORMER_FACTORY;
    private static SAXParserFactory FACTORY;
    private static SAXParser SAXPARSER;   
    private static XMLReader XMLREADER;
    static {
        // Preparing the writting
        DOCUMENT_BUILDER_FACTORY = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
        try {
            DOCUMENT_BUILDER = DOCUMENT_BUILDER_FACTORY.newDocumentBuilder();
        } catch (ParserConfigurationException Ex) {
            Debugger.LogUnreachableCodeReachedSituation(LOG, Ex);
        TRANSFORMER_FACTORY = TransformerFactory.newInstance();
        // Preparing the reading
        try {
            FACTORY = SAXParserFactory.newInstance();
            SAXPARSER = FACTORY.newSAXParser();
            XMLREADER = SAXPARSER.getXMLReader();
        } catch (ParserConfigurationException Ex) {
            Debugger.LogUnreachableCodeReachedSituation(LOG, Ex);
        } catch (SAXException Ex) {
            Debugger.LogUnreachableCodeReachedSituation(LOG, Ex);
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Perform test
        new XMLUTF8_Test();
    public XMLUTF8_Test() {
        // Saving to File
        Document NewDoc = DOCUMENT_BUILDER.newDocument();
        Element Root = NewDoc.createElement("UTF8TEST");
        Root.setAttribute("BIBI", "�ii����");
        Root.setTextContent("tre33���");
        NewDoc.appendChild(Root);
        ByteArrayOutputStream TheBAOS = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
        try {
            Source source = new DOMSource(NewDoc);
            Result result = new StreamResult(TheBAOS);
            Transformer xformer = TRANSFORMER_FACTORY.newTransformer();
            xformer.setOutputProperty(OutputKeys.ENCODING, "utf-8");
            xformer.transform(source, result);
        } catch (TransformerConfigurationException Ex) {
            Debugger.LogUnreachableCodeReachedSituation(LOG, Ex);
        } catch (TransformerException Ex) {
            Debugger.LogUnreachableCodeReachedSituation(LOG, Ex);
        // Printing result
        System.out.println(TheBAOS.toString());
        // Parsing the result
        ByteArrayInputStream TheBAIS = new ByteArrayInputStream(TheBAOS.toByteArray());
        XMLREADER.setContentHandler(this);
        try {
            XMLREADER.parse(new InputSource(TheBAIS));
        } catch (IOException Ex) {
            Debugger.LogUnreachableCodeReachedSituation(LOG, Ex);
        } catch (SAXException Ex) {
            Debugger.LogUnreachableCodeReachedSituation(LOG, Ex);
    @Override
    public void startDocument() throws SAXException {
        System.out.println("-- Begin of Parsing");
    @Override
    public void endDocument() throws SAXException {
        System.out.println("-- End of Parsing");
    @Override
    public void startElement(String namespaceURI, String LocalName, String QualifiedName,
            Attributes TheAttributes) throws SAXException {
        String ElementName = LocalName;
        if ("".equals(ElementName)) {
            ElementName = QualifiedName; // namespaceAware = false
        System.out.println("Element Name = " + ElementName);
        if (TheAttributes != null) {
            for (int i = 0; i < TheAttributes.getLength(); i++) {
                String AttributeName = TheAttributes.getLocalName(i); // Attr name
                if ("".equals(AttributeName)) AttributeName = TheAttributes.getQName(i);
                System.out.println("Attribute Name = " + AttributeName);
                System.out.println("Attribute Value = " + TheAttributes.getValue(AttributeName));
    @Override
    public void endElement(String namespaceURI, String SimpleName, String QualifiedName) throws SAXException {
    @Override
    public void characters(char[] buf, int offset, int len) throws SAXException {
        String s = new String(buf, offset, len);
        System.out.println("Found text : " + s);
}Thanks!