Question

Here’s an excerpt from java.text.CharacterIterator documentation:

• This interface defines a protocol for bidirectional iteration over text. The iterator iterates over a bounded sequence of characters. […] The methods previous() and next() are used for iteration. They return DONE if […], signaling that the iterator has reached the end of the sequence.

• static final char DONE: Constant that is returned when the iterator has reached either the end or the beginning of the text. The value is \uFFFF, the "not a character" value which should not occur in any valid Unicode string.

The italicized part is what I’m having trouble understanding, because from my tests, it looks like a Java String can most certainly contain \uFFFF, and there doesn’t seem to be any problem with it, except obviously with the prescribed CharacterIterator traversal idiom that breaks because of a false positive (e.g. next() returns '\uFFFF' == DONE when it’s not really "done").

Here’s a snippet to illustrate the "problem" (see also on ideone.com):

import java.text.*;
public class CharacterIteratorTest {

    // this is the prescribed traversal idiom from the documentation
    public static void traverseForward(CharacterIterator iter) {
       for(char c = iter.first(); c != CharacterIterator.DONE; c = iter.next()) {
          System.out.print(c);
       }
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String s = "abc\uFFFFdef";

        System.out.println(s);
        // abc?def

        System.out.println(s.indexOf('\uFFFF'));
        // 3
        
        traverseForward(new StringCharacterIterator(s));
        // abc
    }
}

So what is going on here?

• Is the prescribed traversal idiom "broken" because it makes the wrong assumption about \uFFFF?
• Is the StringCharacterIterator implementation "broken" because it doesn’t e.g. throw an IllegalArgumentException if in fact \uFFFF is forbidden in valid Unicode strings?
• Is it actually true that valid Unicode strings should not contain \uFFFF?
• If that’s true, then is Java "broken" for violating the Unicode specification by (for the most parts) allowing String to contain \uFFFF anyway?

Answer 1

EDIT (2013-12-17): Peter O. brings up an excellent point below, which renders this answer wrong. Old answer below, for historical accuracy.

---

Answering your questions:

Is the prescribed traversal idiom “broken” because it makes the wrong assumption about \uFFFF?

No. U+FFFF is a so-called non-character. From Section 16.7 of the Unicode Standard:

Noncharacters are code points that are permanently reserved in the Unicode Standard for internal use. They are forbidden for use in open interchange of Unicode text data.

…

The Unicode Standard sets aside 66 noncharacter code points. The last two code points of
each plane are noncharacters: U+FFFE and U+FFFF on the BMP, U+1FFFE and U+1FFFF
on Plane 1, and so on, up to U+10FFFE and U+10FFFF on Plane 16, for a total of 34 code
points. In addition, there is a contiguous range of another 32 noncharacter code points in
the BMP: U+FDD0..U+FDEF.

Is the StringCharacterIterator implementation “broken” because it doesn’t e.g. throw an IllegalArgumentException if in fact \uFFFF is forbidden in valid Unicode strings?

Not quite. Applications are allowed to use those code points internally in any way they want. Quoting the standard again:

Applications are free to use any of these noncharacter code points internally but should
never attempt to exchange them. If a noncharacter is received in open interchange, an
application is not required to interpret it in any way. It is good practice, however, to recognize it as a noncharacter and to take appropriate action, such as replacing it with U+FFFD REPLACEMENT CHARACTER, to indicate the problem in the text. It is not recommended to
simply delete noncharacter code points from such text, because of the potential security
issues caused by deleting uninterpreted characters.

So while you should never encounter such a string from the user, another application or a file, you may well put it into a Java String if you know what you’re doing (this basically means that you cannot use the CharacterIterator on that string, though.

Is it actually true that valid Unicode strings should not contain \uFFFF?

As quoted above, any string used for interchange must not contain them. Within your application you’re free to use them in whatever way they want.

Of course, a Java char, being just a 16-bit unsigned integer doesn’t really care about the value it holds as well.

If that’s true, then is Java “broken” for violating the Unicode specification by (for the most parts) allowing String to contain \uFFFF anyway?

No. In fact, the section on noncharacters even suggests the use of U+FFFF as sentinel value:

In effect, noncharacters can be thought of as application-internal private-use code points.
Unlike the private-use characters discussed in Section 16.5, Private-Use Characters, which
are assigned characters and which are intended for use in open interchange, subject to
interpretation by private agreement, noncharacters are permanently reserved (unassigned)
and have no interpretation whatsoever outside of their possible application-internal private
uses.

U+FFFF and U+10FFFF. These two noncharacter code points have the attribute of being
associated with the largest code unit values for particular Unicode encoding forms. In
UTF-16, U+FFFF is associated with the largest 16-bit code unit value, FFFF₁₆. U+10FFFF is
associated with the largest legal UTF-32 32-bit code unit value, 10FFFF₁₆. This attribute
renders these two noncharacter code points useful for internal purposes as sentinels. For
example, they might be used to indicate the end of a list, to represent a value in an index
guaranteed to be higher than any valid character value, and so on.

CharacterIterator follows this in that it returns U+FFFF when no more characters are available. Of course, this means that if you have another use for that code point in your application you may consider using a different non-character for that purpose since U+FFFF is already taken – at least if you’re using CharacterIterator.