/* * Copyright (c) 2001, 2010, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. * DO NOT ALTER OR REMOVE COPYRIGHT NOTICES OR THIS FILE HEADER. * * This code is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it * under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only, as * published by the Free Software Foundation. Oracle designates this * particular file as subject to the "Classpath" exception as provided * by Oracle in the LICENSE file that accompanied this code. * * This code is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT * ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License * version 2 for more details (a copy is included in the LICENSE file that * accompanied this code). * * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License version * 2 along with this work; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, * Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA. * * Please contact Oracle, 500 Oracle Parkway, Redwood Shores, CA 94065 USA * or visit www.oracle.com if you need additional information or have any * questions. */ /** * Defines charsets, decoders, and encoders, for translating between bytes and * Unicode characters. * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Class name

Description

{@link java.nio.charset.Charset}A named mapping between characters
and bytes
{@link java.nio.charset.CharsetDecoder}Decodes bytes into characters
{@link java.nio.charset.CharsetEncoder}  Encodes characters into bytes
{@link java.nio.charset.CoderResult}  Describes coder results
{@link java.nio.charset.CodingErrorAction}  Describes actions to take when
coding errors are detected
* *

A charset is named mapping between sequences of sixteen-bit Unicode * characters and sequences of bytes, in the sense defined in RFC 2278. A * decoder is an engine which transforms bytes in a specific charset into * characters, and an encoder is an engine which transforms characters into * bytes. Encoders and decoders operate on byte and character buffers. They are * collectively referred to as coders. * *

The {@link java.nio.charset.Charset} class defines methods for creating * coders for a given charset and for retrieving the various names associated with * a charset. It also defines static methods for testing whether a particular * charset is supported, for locating charset instances by name, and for * constructing a map that contains every charset for which support is available * in the current Java virtual machine. * *

Most users will not use these classes directly; instead they will use the * existing charset-related constructors and methods in the {@link * java.lang.String} class, together with the existing {@link * java.io.InputStreamReader} and {@link java.io.OutputStreamWriter} classes, all * of whose implementations have been reworked to make use of the charset * facilities defined in this package. A small number of changes have been made * to the {@link java.io.InputStreamReader} and {@link java.io.OutputStreamWriter} * classes in order to allow explicit charset objects to be specified in the * construction of instances of those classes. * *

Support for new charsets can be made available via the interface defined in * the {@link java.nio.charset.spi.CharsetProvider} class in the {@link * java.nio.charset.spi} package. * *

Unless otherwise noted, passing a null argument to a constructor * or method in any class or interface in this package will cause a {@link * java.lang.NullPointerException NullPointerException} to be thrown. * * * @since 1.4 * @author Mark Reinhold * @author JSR-51 Expert Group */ package java.nio.charset;