Read "special" characters (é,°) from MySQL database

do you have some example code?

and results?  and expected results?

You could try getCharacterStream() or getAsciiStream() (treat it as a CLOB), which seems to handle special character conversions better than getString().  However, I put this up in the spirit of collaboration and with the hope that someone else has a better (simpler) solution.

However, this is something I did in the past when I ran into this problem and it produced good results.

Here is the function :

  private boolean set_titres(int id_table_choisie)
  {
    java.sql.ResultSet resultat;
    String titre_graphique = null,
        nom[] = new String[2];

    for(int i=1;i>=0;i--)
    {
      try
      {
        if ( (resultat = requete("SELECT * FROM tinfo_on_tables WHERE id=" + id_table_choisie + " AND nom_colonne='" + colonne[i] + "'")) == null)
        {
          return false;
        }
        else
        {
          if (!resultat.next())
          {
            return false;
          }
          else
          {
            <b>nom[i] = resultat.getString("nom_tableau");</b>
            System.out.println(nom[i]);
            if(i==1)
            {
              titre_graphique = "Valeur "+resultat.getString("article")+" "+nom[i]+" en fonction ";
            }
            if(i==0)
            {
              titre_graphique += resultat.getString("article")+" "+nom[i];
            }
            if (resultat.getString("unites") != null)
            {
              nom[i] += " (" + resultat.getString("unites") + ")";
            }
          }
        }
      }
      catch (java.sql.SQLException e)
      {        
        return false;
      }
    }
    //here is some instantiation of a private variable
    toutes_donnees.set_titre_axe_x(nom[0]);
    toutes_donnees.set_titre_axe_y(nom[1]);
    toutes_donnees.set_titre_graphique(titre_graphique);

    return true;
  }

I get "d?formation" from System.out.println(nom[i]) when it is "déformation" in the database.

private java.sql.ResultSet requete(String nom_commande)
  {
    java.sql.Statement rapport;
    java.sql.ResultSet resultat;

    try
    {
      rapport = conn_mysql.createStatement();
    }
    catch(java.sql.SQLException e)
    {
      //sortie.append("Erreur lors de la création d'un Statement : \""+e.getMessage()+"\" code n° "+e.getErrorCode()+"\n");
      return null;
    }

    try
    {
      resultat = rapport.executeQuery(nom_commande);
    }
    catch(java.sql.SQLException e)
    {
      //sortie.append("Erreur lors de la requête \""+nom_commande+"\" à la base de données : \""+e.getMessage()+"\" code n° "+e.getErrorCode()+"\n");
      return null; //DEBUGRESTE -> tenir compte du null
    }


    return resultat;
  }

I forgot to paste the requete method:

  private java.sql.Connection conn_mysql;

  private java.sql.ResultSet requete(String nom_commande)
  {
    java.sql.Statement rapport;
    java.sql.ResultSet resultat;

    try
    {
      rapport = conn_mysql.createStatement();
      resultat = rapport.executeQuery(nom_commande);
    }
    catch(java.sql.SQLException e)
    {
      return null;
    }

    return resultat;
  }

I forgot to paste the requete method:

  private java.sql.Connection conn_mysql;

  private java.sql.ResultSet requete(String nom_commande)
  {
    java.sql.Statement rapport;
    java.sql.ResultSet resultat;

    try
    {
      rapport = conn_mysql.createStatement();
      resultat = rapport.executeQuery(nom_commande);
    }
    catch(java.sql.SQLException e)
    {
      return null;
    }

    return resultat;
  }

This seems to me like a problem with your driver. You could of course do a character encoding translation by manipulating bytes/string/streams, but that would not be tackling the problem at source. What encoding is used in the database?

You may have to reconfigure your system to view the special characters on your server console.

I recommend trying to re-insert the special characters you pull from the database that appear as ?s in the console back into the database.  This will help you to determine where the corruption is occurring, if it in fact is.

Please see my post on https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20538200/Saving-Euro-Symbol-into-Oracle-database.html for information about your NLS_LANG setting in the registry.  Modifying this may allow your console to display non-standard ASCII characters -- it did for me on OC4J.

Let me know if this helps.

I've test my program drawing my text using Graphics2D and i'm able to print the letter '&eacute;' but the values given by the method getString("nom_tableau") shows a little rectangle instead of that letter.

How do I do to see / change the value of NLS_LANG??  I looked in the registry and it wasn't there...

>>I've test my program drawing my text using Graphics2D and i'm able to print the letter '&eacute;' but the values given by the method getString("nom_tableau") shows a little rectangle instead of that letter.
>>

In the first part of the above, you must of course use a Font that can display the characters you want. In the second part, i'm not clear what you're actually doing.

My program is drawing a graphic using input from a MySQL database.
My font can draw '&eacute;' because i tried it manually.  But when i take the String that i took from the database it shows a rectangle instead of a '&eacute;'.  And, when i'm accessing the data from DOS using the mysql program I can see the '&eacute;' in my values.

>>But when i take the String that i took from the database it shows a rectangle instead of a '&eacute;'.  


I take it that it's the String in the code below?

>><b>nom[i] = resultat.getString("nom_tableau");</b>

Can you print out the following

char[] chars = resultat.getString("nom_tableau").toCharArray();
for(int i = 0;i < chars.length ;i++) {
  System.out.println("0x" + Integer.toHexString(chars[i]));
}

it gives me :
"0x64, 0x82, 0x66, 0x6f, 0x72, 0x6d, 0x61, 0x74, 0x69, 0x6f, 0x6e" and the unicode letter i'm trying to do (supposed to be the second) is E9

Is it possible that the characters returned are in ASCII code (that stops to 0x7F)??

Not sure yet.

Does the number of characters in your string equal the number returned in the above loop?

What is the unicode encoding for the character you're trying to use - \u00e9?

yes the unicode is \u00E9
and yes the number of character equals the number in the string...

It's this 0x82 character that's the problem. I don't know what encoding it is - do you?

No I don't, and I'm wondering which it is...

I decided to use a code in the database that specified the Unicode code for the letter as \U00E9...  When I meet this kind of code, I "translate" the code to its real value as a letter...

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