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Encoding Utilities
This package contains a number of utility classes dealing with generic
encoding of {@link java.lang.String}s.
Although this might sound useless at first (as {@link java.lang.String}s
do support encoding internally already), this class deals with a very
subtle problem encountered when merging Java {@link java.lang.String}s
and old byte-based (non internationalized) transports, such as
Base 64 and URL encoding.
Let's consider (as an example) the URL encoded {@link java.lang.String}
%C2%A3 100 can be easily decomposed in a byte array using
URL decoding techniques: we would end up with the following byte array:
0x0C2 0x0A3 0x20 0x31 0x30 0x30.
This byte-array, though, doesn't tell us anything about how to represent
this as a readable and usable {@link java.lang.String} in Java. To be
able to convert this we have to decode it again using a charset (or an
encoding).
So, for example, if we were to decode the above mentioned byte array using
the ISO-8859-1 encoding, we would obtain the string
"£ 100", or in details:
- a latin capital letter "A" with a circumflex accent
- the pound sign
- a space
- the number 1
- the number 0
- the number 0
If we were to decode the same byte sequence using UTF-8, on the
other hand, we would obtain the (quite different) string
"£ 100", or in details:
- the pound sign
- a space
- the number 1
- the number 0
- the number 0
Therefore, as a conclusion, when Java {@link java.lang.String}s are
encoded using Base 64, URL encoding, or similar techiques, one always
have to remember that encoding (or decoding) must be done twice, and
this package provides a way to deal with this mechanism.