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javakotlinencodingcharacter-encoding

Encode String to UTF-8 in Kotlin

Often times when dealing with json and responses you want to encode String to UTF-8 in java.

String response = new String(response.data, UTF); // java code

For Kotlin, how is this done? I converted my Java class and the result was

String response = String(response.data, UTF) // kotlin code

But this results in an error, because I believe the Kotlin String() method is different than what I am doing in Java. Is it as simple as using the toString()?

String response = response.data.toString() // kotlin code

How does the system know to use UTF-8, or is that just the default? This is just hypothetical, but what if I wanted to do something with String object and therefore used UTF-16? How can I change the encoding?

Solution

  • Kotlin has an overload of ByteArray.toString accepting a Charset. All you need to do is use it: array.toString(charset).

    I cannot find a section in the documentation specifying that ByteArray.toString() does the right thing, as it doesn't in Java and that behavior probably is preserved in Kotlin. I would guess it does the wrong thing. I recommend using toString(charset) explicitly.