Get unicode value of a character

java unicode
Saurabh picture Saurabh · Feb 8, 2010 · Viewed 153.1k times · Source

Is there any way in Java so that I can get Unicode equivalent of any character? e.g.

Suppose a method getUnicode(char c). A call getUnicode('÷') should return \u00f7.

Answer

SyntaxT3rr0r picture SyntaxT3rr0r · Feb 8, 2010

You can do it for any Java char using the one liner here:

System.out.println( "\\u" + Integer.toHexString('÷' | 0x10000).substring(1) );

But it's only going to work for the Unicode characters up to Unicode 3.0, which is why I precised you could do it for any Java char.

Because Java was designed way before Unicode 3.1 came and hence Java's char primitive is inadequate to represent Unicode 3.1 and up: there's not a "one Unicode character to one Java char" mapping anymore (instead a monstrous hack is used).

So you really have to check your requirements here: do you need to support Java char or any possible Unicode character?

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