Question

Just wonder what is behind the scene.
Actually it seems that we can set the encoding with:

• response.setContentType("text/html; charset=UTF-8")
• response.setCharacterEncoding("UTF-8")

What is the difference?

Answer 1

The javadoc is pretty clear about the difference:

void setCharacterEncoding(String charset)
Sets the character encoding (MIME charset) of the response being sent to the client, for example, to UTF-8. If the character encoding has already been set by setContentType(java.lang.String) or setLocale(java.util.Locale), this method overrides it. Calling setContentType(java.lang.String) with the String of text/html and calling this method with the String of UTF-8 is equivalent with calling setContentType with the String of text/html; charset=UTF-8.

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void setContentType(String type)
Sets the content type of the response being sent to the client, if the response has not been committed yet. The given content type may include a character encoding specification, for example, text/html;charset=UTF-8.