Question

I have the following value in a string variable in Java which has UTF-8 characters encoded like below

Dodd\u2013Frank

instead of

Dodd–Frank

(Assume that I don’t have control over how this value is assigned to this string variable)

Now how do I convert (encode) it properly and store it back in a String variable?

I found the following code

Charset.forName("UTF-8").encode(str);

But this returns a ByteBuffer, but I want a String back.

Edit:

Some more additional information.

When I use System.out.println(str); I get

Dodd\u2013Frank

I am not sure what is the correct terminology (UTF-8 or unicode). Pardon me for that.

Answer 1

try

str = org.apache.commons.lang3.StringEscapeUtils.unescapeJava(str);

from Apache Commons Lang