How to handle special chars in parameter values?

Question

I've some issues with my Java Servlet if it's called with special chars (like Æ, Ø og Å) in the GET-parameters: http://localhost:8080/WebService/MyService?test=Øst.

I than have this code in my doGet:

protected void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) throws ServletException, IOException {
    System.out.println(request.getParameterValues("test")[0]);
}

The messages printed in the console is: Ã?st.

The Web Service should be able to handle calls like this. How can I encode the parameter values in a proper way?

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 21 '12 at 14:26

2

This needs to be configured at servet level. It's not clear which one you're using, so I'll give examples for Tomcat and Glassfish only.

Tomcat: add URIEncoding attribute to <Connector> element in /conf/server.xml:

<Connector ... URIEncoding="UTF-8">

Glassfish: add <parameter-encoding> to /WEB-INF/glassfish-web.xml (or sun-web.xml for older versions):

<parameter-encoding default-charset="UTF-8" />

I'm using a Tomcat server using the Eclipse IDE. The file *WebContent/WEB-INF/web.xml* does not contain any Connector-element. Is it normal? – dhrm Mar 21 '12 at 15:05
I said `/conf/server.xml`, not `/WEB-INF/web.xml`. It's in Tomcat installation folder. However, if you haven't taken over Tomcat fully in Eclipse (which is the default setting; see also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2280064/tomcat-started-in-eclipse-but-unable-to-connect-to-link-to-http-localhost8085/2280798#2280798), then you need to configure it by the `server.xml` in *Servers* project instead. Note that for production Tomcat this needs to be configured in its `/conf/server.xml`. – BalusC Mar 21 '12 at 15:08

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 21 '12 at 13:11

1

you should be percent encoding special characters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percent-encoding). In your example above, the "slashed O" (Ø) has the UTF-8 code 0xd8, so your URL would properly be written:

http://localhost:8080/WebService/MyService?test=%d8st.

Which should result in

Øst.

being printed to the console, from your servlet code above.

answered Mar 21 '12 at 13:11

bryon

11
1

A service like Google Maps works without percent encoding special chars: http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/directions/json?origin=9220+Aalborg+Øst&destination=Copenhagen&sensor=false&region=dk. I would like to support this too. – dhrm Mar 21 '12 at 15:01

score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 21 '12 at 12:52

-1

You could try the following code before requesting parameters:

request.setCharacterEncoding("utf-8");

answered Mar 21 '12 at 12:52

Alexey A.

1,389
1
11
20

That's for POST requests only. – BalusC Mar 21 '12 at 14:24

How to handle special chars in parameter values?

3 Answers3

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