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How can I use/display characters like ♥, ♦, ♣, or ♠ in Java/Eclipse?

When I try to use them directly, e.g. in the source code, Eclipse cannot save the file.

What can I do?

Edit: How can I find the unicode escape sequence?

Arc676
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Burkhard
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8 Answers8

37

The problem is that the characters you are using cannot be represented in the encoding you have the file set to (Cp1252). The way I see it, you essentially have two options:

Option 1. Change the encoding. According to IBM, you should set the encoding to UTF-8. I believe this would solve your problem.

  • Set the global text file encoding preference Workbench > Editors to "UTF-8".
  • If an encoding other than UTF-8 is required, set the encoding on the individual file rather than using the global preference setting. To do this use the File > Properties > Info menu selection to set the encoding on an individual file.

Option 2. Remove the characters which are not supported by the "Cp1252" character encoding. You can replace the unsupported characters with Unicode escape sequences (\uxxxx). While this would allow you to save your file, it is not necessarily the best solution.

For the characters you specified in your question here are the Unicode escape sequences:

♥ \u2665
♦ \u2666
♣ \u2663
♠ \u2660
Joe Lencioni
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    I would argue that the second option is preferable because it makes the file more portable between different source encodings. It depends where the characters are of course (String literals? Comments? READMEs?). – McDowell Oct 14 '08 at 11:03
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    I would argue that the first option is preferable because anyone who uses any encoding other than UTF-8 (certainly anyone who uses a country-specific encoding) for their source files needs help. :) – Cowan Oct 14 '08 at 12:02
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    Java source files are treated as the OS encoding by default (some 8bit CP on Windows; UTF8 on Linux). Not writing ASCII means you need to ensure that devs know about it before they compile and risks introducing bugs if they do not. I18N stuff should be in properties files (UTF8 by definition). – McDowell Oct 14 '08 at 13:12
  • You are just plain Awesome dude – Shishir Shetty Feb 03 '12 at 15:05
  • +1; To avoid looking up each character's code point, one can use `AnyEdit` eclipse plugin. See my answer for details. – Piotr Findeisen Oct 29 '13 at 09:51
22

In Eclipse:

  1. Go to Window -> Preferences -> General -> Workspace -> TextFileEncoding
  2. Set it to UTF-8
Ripon Al Wasim
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sepehr
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10

It can be solved by setting encoding in eclipse:

1st way:

At the menu select File-->Properties and then at the "Text file encoding" section: Select Other radio, Select UTF-8 from combo -> Lastly click OK button

2nd way:

Right click on specific file (say Test.java) -> Properties. In Text file encoding section: Select Other radio, Select UTF-8 from combo -> Lastly click OK button

3rd way:

If you want to make this change for all your project go at Window-->Preferences--> General--> Workspace . In Text file encoding section: Select Other radio, Select UTF-8 from combo -> Lastly click OK button

Ripon Al Wasim
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idrosid
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2

Expanding a bit on @Joe Lencioni answer

You can use AnyEdit Eclipse plugin (install-able from Eclipse marketplace) to easily convert Unicode text into Java Unicode escapes:

  • Select char/text with non-ASCII characters
  • right-click
  • Convert > To Unicode Notation

One minor caveat is that AnyEdit wants to save the file first which obviously is disallowed by Eclipse until you fix your text.

Piotr Findeisen
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Either change your encoding to one which will cope, e.g. UTF-8, or find the relevant Unicode number and use a \uxxxx escape sequence to represent it.

Jon Skeet
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Finding the unicode escape sequence: see these Unicode charts. Your characters are in the Misc. Symbols chart, \u2660 and up.

MSalters
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0

Windows Menu –> Preferences –> General (expand it) –> Workspace (click on it). Look for a box “Text File Encoding”. Default will be “Cp1252″. Change radio to select other and select “UTF-8″ from combo box.

Sonu
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0

You can solve that issue by changing your Region settings if you're using Windows 11.

Take a look a this full detailed answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/75648170/20504845

Peter Alli Aguilera
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