Java with maven, netbeans

Question

I'm currently developing a proyect about chess. Main idea is to use it on console as CMD. It currently works with array[8][8], i store the "chess pieces" on it. But the main problem is: When i want to print an emoji as "♜, ♞, ♝, and so on", output displays the emojis as ? . I have already tried some things like UTF-8, Emoji-Java library, changing the Fonts of output console with compatible Fonts... I've tried for hours, i have searched around the internet, i can't find anything... If you help me i'd appreciate it.

 [?][?][?][?][?][?][?][?]//♜, ♞, ♝, ♛, ♚, ♝, ♞, ♜.  
 [null][null][null][null][null][null][null][null]//Null= available space to move
 [null][null][null][null][null][null][null][null]
 [null][null][null][null][null][null][null][null]
 [null][null][null][null][null][null][null][null]
 [null][null][null][null][null][null][null][null]
 [null][null][null][null][null][null][null][null]
 [null][null][null][null][null][null][null][null]
//Please ignore the null values, it's going to be fixed when the problem is solved... 

Answer 1

It's complicated, very complicated, and it differs by the OS and it also differs by the version (windows 7 vs 10), and it differs by the patch level (eg windows 10 before and after patch 2004 for example).

So let me save you hours of further heartache by suggesting that you use a UI instead where you can control the underlying character set. For example, using Swing or JavaFX.

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However, if you insist on using the console then you need to take a number of steps.

The first being to use a PrintWriter in your code to write out characters using the correct encoding:

PrintWriter consoleOut = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(System.out, StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
consoleOut.println("your character here");

The next step is to pre-configure the console to use your character set. For example in windows you might use the chcp command before starting your jar file:

chcp 65001
java -jar .....

But not only that, you should use the Dfile.encoding flag when you start your jar:

java -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -jar yourChessApplciation.jar

Now assuming you got all those steps right it might work, but it might not. You also need to ensure that all your source files are encoded in UTF-8. I won't go into that here because it differs by this IDE, but if you are using something like Netbeans then you can configure the source encoding in the project properties.

I would also encourage you to use the Unicode character definition rather than the actual symbol in your code:

//Avoid this, it may fail for a number of reasons (mostly encoding related)
consoleOut.println("♜");
//The better way to write the character using the unicode definition
consoleOut.println("\u265C");

Now even with all this you still need to ensure that your chosen console uses the correct character set. Here are the steps to follow for powershell: Using UTF-8 Encoding (CHCP 65001) in Command Prompt / Windows Powershell (Windows 10) Or for windows cmd you can take a look here: How to make Unicode charset in cmd.exe by default

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So with all of those steps completed you can compile this code:

PrintWriter consoleOut = new PrintWriter(new OutputStreamWriter(System.out, StandardCharsets.UTF_8));
consoleOut.println("Using UTF_8 output with the character: ♜");
consoleOut.println("Using UTF_8 output with the unicode definition: \u265C");   
consoleOut.close();

And then run your compiled jar file in your console (Powershell in this example) something like this (You wont need to use chcp 65001 if you configured the powershell console correctly):

chcp 65001
java -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -jar yourChessApplciation.jar

And the output should give the following result:

Using UTF_8 output with the character: ♜

Using UTF_8 output with the unicode definition: ♜

But it might still fail to show correctly, in which case see my opening section about using a UI, or try a different console... It's complicated.