Unable to read thai characters from .properties resource file in java

Question

I have a resource file (.properties file) which is having thai characters.

When I read that file using the below code it is showing junk characters like "?"

package RD1.Common;

import java.util.Enumeration;
import java.util.Locale;
import java.util.ResourceBundle;

public class LabelManagerRD {

   public static String[] getLabel(String ParamString1)
    {

      String NextEle = "";
      String str2 = ParamString1;
      int i = 1;

      String Final[] = new String[1000];

      ResourceBundle bundle =
              ResourceBundle.getBundle("rd", Locale.US);

      Enumeration<String> enumeration = bundle.getKeys();

      while (enumeration.hasMoreElements()) 
        {
             NextEle = enumeration.nextElement();

             if (NextEle.toLowerCase().contains(str2.toLowerCase()))
             {
                 Final[i] = NextEle+"="+bundle.getString(NextEle);
                 i++;
             }
      }

    return Final;

    }


   public static void main(String[] args)
    {
       try
       {
        String TestValue[] = getLabel("RD.RDRAPCEX");
        for(int i=1;i<=TestValue.length;i++)
        {   
            if (!(TestValue[i].length()==0))
            {
                System.out.println(i+" - "+TestValue[i]);
            }

        }
       }
       catch (Exception e)
       {

       }


    }
}

And properties file (rd_en_US.properties) is like below

BL_BLNG_GROUP.BL_BLNG_GRP.BLNG_GRP_ID.IP=รสสรืเ เพนีย รก~^PAGE_1~^Y~^N
BL_BLNG_GROUP.BL_BLNG_GRP.LONG_DESC.IP=Long Desc~^PAGE_1~^Y~^N
BL_BLNG_GROUP.BL_BLNG_GRP.SHORT_DESC.IP=Short Desc~^PAGE_1~^Y~^N
BL_BLNG_GROUP.BL_BLNG_GRP.DETAIL_DESC.IP=Explanatory Note~^PAGE_1~^Y~^N

Please suggest how to proceed with this.

Thanks in advance, Sandy

Answer 1

If encoding of your file is corrent then you must note that System.out will not be able to print the UTF-8 characters with default console settings. Make sure the console you use to display the output is also encoded in UTF-8.

In Eclipse for example, you need to go to Run Configuration > Common to do this.

Answer 2

Property files are typically interpreted in ISO 8859-1 encoding. If you need other characters not included in this set use unicode escapes like \\uxxxx . There are also tools available to convert property files with different encoding to this one (see native2ascii ).