How to convert Strings to and from UTF8 byte arrays in Java

java string encoding character-encoding
mcherm picture mcherm · Sep 18, 2008 · Viewed 667k times · Source

In Java, I have a String and I want to encode it as a byte array (in UTF8, or some other encoding). Alternately, I have a byte array (in some known encoding) and I want to convert it into a Java String. How do I do these conversions?

Answer

mcherm picture mcherm · Sep 18, 2008

Convert from String to byte[]:

String s = "some text here";
byte[] b = s.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);

Convert from byte[] to String:

byte[] b = {(byte) 99, (byte)97, (byte)116};
String s = new String(b, StandardCharsets.US_ASCII);

You should, of course, use the correct encoding name. My examples used US-ASCII and UTF-8, the two most common encodings.

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