Encoding conversion in java

Question

Is there any free java library which I can use to convert string in one encoding to other encoding, something like iconv? I'm using Java version 1.3.

Answer 1

You don't need a library beyond the standard one - just use Charset. (You can just use the String constructors and getBytes methods, but personally I don't like just working with the names of character encodings. Too much room for typos.)

EDIT: As pointed out in comments, you can still use Charset instances but have the ease of use of the String methods: new String(bytes, charset) and String.getBytes(charset).

See "URL Encoding (or: 'What are those "%20" codes in URLs?')".