Can not display hebrew characters on jsp

Question

I'm having a problem to display UTF-8 characters on jsp.

I'm using eclipse, jsp file, java class and tomcat 7 buit in the eclipse. I have 3 files :

 - index.jsp

    <%@ page language="java" contentType="text/html; charset=UTF-8"%>
    <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
    <html>
    <head>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
    <title>Insert title here</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <form action="getProperties.jsp" method="post" name="GettingMovieParameters">
        Choose your name : <input type="text" name="hebrewMovieName"> 
        <input type="submit" value="send">
        </form>
    </body>
    </html>

getProperties.jsp

<jsp:useBean id="propertiesBean" class="my.movieDownloader.org.UserData" scope="session"/>
<jsp:setProperty name="propertiesBean" property="*"/> 

<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title>Insert title here</title>
</head>
<body>
    Movie hebrew name is : <%= propertiesBean.getHebrewMovieName() %>
</body>
</html>



  UserData.java

    public class UserData {
    private String hebrewMovieName;

    public String getHebrewMovieName() {
        return hebrewMovieName;
    }
    public void setHebrewMovieName(String hebrewMovieName) {
        System.out.println("Setting up: "  +hebrewMovieName);
        this.hebrewMovieName = hebrewMovieName;
    }
}

I tried to set UTF-8 encoding in eclipse editor, the jsp files, html files, etc. And nothing works. I don't know what I'm missing but I'll be happy if someone can help me.. Thanks, Or.

Make sure your browser haven't cached the page. It would be better to clear the cache, cookies, etc in your browser and then try again. — Luiggi Mendoza, Feb 16 '13 at 17:44
I just test it with a new browser and clear the cache.. And still.. it doesn't work. — ork, Feb 16 '13 at 17:55
Just for testing, does it help if you change `method="post"` to `method="get"` in the ` — Clemens Klein-Robbenhaar, Feb 16 '13 at 19:29
Problem dispaying it where? To the browser? In the editor? What shows instead? — nitind, Feb 17 '13 at 06:15
Problem see it in the browser and in eclipse (System.out.println) as well.. There is a '??' characters. — ork, Feb 17 '13 at 08:12

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 20 '13 at 06:39

server side

filter may be the solution, I used Spring's CharacterEncodingFilter:

  <filter>
    <filter-name>CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-class>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>encoding</param-name>
      <param-value>UTF-8</param-value>
    </init-param>
    <init-param>
      <param-name>forceEncoding</param-name>
      <param-value>true</param-value>
    </init-param>
  </filter>
  ...
  <filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </filter-mapping>

client side

if you're having trouble displaying or sending characters try using the jsp page directive to set the pages encoding:

<jsp:directive.page contentType="text/html;charset=UTF-8"/>

(should replace both <%@page> and <meta> tags)

Clemens Klein-Robbenhaar · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-17T20:59:48.677

2

It seems you need to configure the webapp to set the characher encoding of the incoming post data correctly. Unfortunately the default is here ISO-8859-1, and tomcat sticks to the default set up in the specification. You need to set it to UTF-8 manually. This is explained here:

http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/FAQ/CharacterEncoding#Q3

Short version: adding this to the web.xml should help:

<filter>
    <filter-name>CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>org.apache.catalina.filters.SetCharacterEncodingFilter</filter-class>
    <init-param>
        <param-name>encoding</param-name>
        <param-value>UTF-8</param-value>
    </init-param>
</filter>
<filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>CharacterEncodingFilter</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>

edited Feb 17 '13 at 20:59

answered Feb 16 '13 at 20:10

Clemens Klein-Robbenhaar

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I tried it with no success. I'm using Tomcat 7, and i did it.. but still i have the same problem. – ork Feb 16 '13 at 20:42
my answer works only for post request; I hope I did not cause this to mess up because I asked if it works for get in a comment. For get-requests there is a different configuration tweak to be made in the `server.xml` by adding a `URIEncoding="UTF-8"` to the ` – Clemens Klein-Robbenhaar Feb 16 '13 at 21:58
With the get request your solution worked! Thanks alot!! Do you have another idea to the post? – ork Feb 17 '13 at 19:16
I am completely confused. The filter should only work for post-requests, and the `URIEncoding="UTF-8"` only works for get-requests. So adding the filter and then having get working is something I cannot explain. – Clemens Klein-Robbenhaar Feb 17 '13 at 19:21
No.. I tried to use the URIEncoding="UTF-8" with get request and it worked. The filter doesn't work for me with the post request.. Do you have any idea to resolve the post issue? – ork Feb 17 '13 at 20:41
I forgot to mention that the `filter` needs a `filter-mapping` to be active. I have updated my answer. Please try the updated answer, and please note that the `filter-mapping` for the `CharacterEncodingFilter` must be the first filter-mapping in the `web.xml` – Clemens Klein-Robbenhaar Feb 17 '13 at 21:04

Can not display hebrew characters on jsp

2 Answers2

server side

client side