The Java.io package

Index

Objective 3, When to use specific encoding conversions

Distinguish between conditions under which platform default encoding conversion should be used and conditions under which a specific conversion should be used.

This could be a "bondage and discipline" type of objective. By this I mean that some purists might take the attitude that you should always specify the encoding conversion because you never know where, when and how your program will be used. It was because so many programmers assumed that the code they wrote that would never have to cope with the year 2,000 that there was such a mess with Y2K fixing. Well it's a well paying mess for some programmers.

If you take a more benign view, this objective asks you identify if your code is likely to ever have to deal with anything but the default encoding. If your home default encoding is not ISO-LATIN-1 and you consider that English is the international language of Business, or you may need to deal with other character sets, then take advantage of the ability to do specific conversions.

If some of this means nothing to you, re-read the previous section about the Reader and Writer classes.

Objective 3, When to use specific encoding conversions

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