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).