Converting uXXXX Sequences Back with "-reverse" Option

Java Tools Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟native2ascii - Native-to-ASCII Encoding Converter

∟Converting uXXXX Sequences Back with "-reverse" Option

This section provides a tutorial example on how to \uXXXX Unicode code sequences back to a native encoding like UTF-8 with the 'native2ascii -encoding utf-8 -reverse' command.

Warning: "native2ascii" has been discontinued since JDK 9. But if you still have JDK 1.8 installed, you can continue to use it to convert Java source from one encoding to another.

"native2ascii" also offers the "-reverse" option to help you convert text files with any \uXXXX Unicode code sequences back to any native encodings, like UTF-8, or GB2312.

The tutorial example below shows you how I converted some Chinese characters in a UTF-8 file to \uXXXX Unicode code sequences, then back to a GB2312 encoded file:

herong> type HelloUtf8.java
/* HelloUtf8.java
 * Copyright (c) 2005 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
public class HelloUtf8 {
   public static void main(String[] a) {
      System.out.println("Hello world!");
      System.out.println("世界你好！");
   }
}

herong> \Progra~1\java\jdk1.8.0\bin\native2ascii -encoding utf-8 \
   HelloUtf8.java HelloUtf8.unicode

herong> type HelloUtf8.unicode
/* HelloUtf8.java
 * Copyright (c) 2005 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
public class HelloUtf8 {
   public static void main(String[] a) {
      System.out.println("Hello world!");
      System.out.println("\u4e16\u754c\u4f60\u597d\uff01");
   }
}

herong> \Progra~1\java\jdk1.8.0\bin\native2ascii -encoding gb2312 \
   -reverse HelloUtf8.unicode HelloUtf8.gb2312

herong> type HelloUtf8.gb2312
/* HelloUtf8.java
 * Copyright (c) 2005 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
 */
public class HelloUtf8 {
   public static void main(String[] a) {
      System.out.println("Hello world!");
      System.out.println("-++t-p¦+úí");
   }
}

As you can see, if you use "native2ascii" and "native2ascii -reverse" together, you can convert any non-ASCII file from one encoding to another encoding.