Spring Boot default properties encoding change?

Question

I am trying to find a way to set UTF-8 encoding for properties accessed via @Value annotation from application.property files in Spring boot. So far I have been successfully set encoding to my own properties sources by creating a bean:

@Bean
@Primary
public PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer placeholderConfigurer(){
    PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer configurer = new PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer();
    configurer.setLocation(new ClassPathResource("app.properties");
    configurer.setFileEncoding("UTF-8");
    return configurer;
}

Such solution presents two problems. For once, it does NOT work with "application.properties" locations used by default by Spring Boot (http://docs.spring.io/spring-boot/docs/current/reference/html/boot-features-external-config.html#boot-features-external-config), and I am forced to use different file names.

And the other problem is, with it I am left with manually defining and ordering supported locations for multiple sources (eg. in jar vs outside jar properties file, etc) thus redoing a job well done already.

How would I obtain a reference to already configured PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer and change it's file encoding at just the right time of application initialization?

Edit: Perhaps I am doing a mistake somewhere else? This is what causes actual problem for me: When I use application.properties to allow users to apply personal name to emails sent from an application:

@Value("${mail.mailerAddress}")
private String mailerAddress;

@Value("${mail.mailerName}")
private String mailerName;                       // Actual property is Święty Mikołaj

private InternetAddress getSender(){
    InternetAddress sender = new InternetAddress();
    sender.setAddress(mailerAddress);
    try {
        sender.setPersonal(mailerName, "UTF-8"); // Result is ÅšwiÄ™ty MikoÅ‚aj
        // OR: sender.setPersonal(mailerName);   // Result is ??wiÄ?ty Miko??aj
    } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
        logger.error("Unsupported encoding used in sender name", e);
    }
    return sender;
}

When I have placeholderConfigurer bean as shown above added, and place my property inside 'app.properties' it is resoved just fine. Just renaming the file to 'application.properties' breaks it.

Before doing that, are you sure there are no simpler solutions? I use environment variables and I have used application.properties using UTF-8 without any particular issue. What is exactly the problem you are experiencing? — Alessandro Santini, Jan 11 '15 at 00:49
@AlessandroSantini I have updated the question with particular problem it causes for me. — JockX, Jan 11 '15 at 13:42
If you debug the class, do you see the error? It sounds more like an output problem. — chrylis -cautiouslyoptimistic-, Jan 11 '15 at 14:17
@chrylis - Value annotated strings have different values depending on if I store property in app.propeties (accessed by my PropertySourcesPlaceholderConfigurer) or application.propertes (spring default). Doesn't look like an output problem. — JockX, Jan 11 '15 at 19:29
Did you try encoding the string with http://docs.oracle.com/javaee/6/api/javax/mail/internet/MimeUtility.html#encodeText%28java.lang.String%29 ? I did not have the time to check whether InternetAddress does it under the hood, but the class I quoted does an RFC-2047 compliant translation of the name (which apparently needs to be made of US-characters only, unless I misunderstood the specs). — Alessandro Santini, Jan 11 '15 at 22:26

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 20 '15 at 00:51

9

Apparently properties loaded by Spring Boot's ConfigFileApplicationListener are encoded in ISO 8859-1 character encoding, which is by design and according to format specification.

On the other hand, the .yaml format supports UTF-8 out of the box. A simple extension change fixes the problem for me.

answered Jan 20 '15 at 00:51

JockX

1,928
1
16
30

But [JDK 9 supports properties files in UTF-8](https://docs.oracle.com/javase/9/intl/internationalization-enhancements-jdk-9.htm#JSINT-GUID-5ED91AA9-B2E3-4E05-8E99-6A009D2B36AF). Has the latest Spring Boot been updated to match? – Garret Wilson Aug 23 '20 at 22:05

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 27 '17 at 21:55

@JockX suggestion works perfectly. Also, the conversion from property to yaml is quite straightforward. This:

spring.main.web_environment=false
email.subject.text=Here goes your subject
email.from.name=From Me
email.from.address=me@here.com
email.replyTo.name=To Him
email.replyTo.address=to@him.com

Would become:

spring:
  main:
    web_environment: false
email:
  subject:
    text: Here goes your subject
  from:
    name: From Me
    address: me@here.com
  replyTo:
    name: To Him
    address: to@him.com

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 10 '19 at 06:57

Another approach would be Instead of renaming the complete file from .properties to .yml you can pick the props which need UTF-8 support and move them to .yml file. This way you need not rewrite ur .properties file.

I advice this because if you have props like

my.string.format= %s-hello-%s

This breaks in .yml files. You would have to write them as

my.string.format: |
   %s-hello-%s

Which then leads to adding a new line in the property valye my.string.format when read in the Java code.

Spring Boot default properties encoding change?

3 Answers3

Linked