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(gcj-300.info)Encodings

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Encodings
=========

   The Java programming language uses Unicode throughout.  In an effort
to integrate well with other locales, `gcj' allows `.java' files to be
written using almost any encoding.  `gcj' knows how to convert these
encodings into its internal encoding at compile time.

   You can use the `--encoding=NAME' option to specify an encoding (of
a particular character set) to use for source files.  If this is not
specified, the default encoding comes from your current locale.  If
your host system has insufficient locale support, then `gcj' assumes
the default encoding to be the `UTF-8' encoding of Unicode.

   To implement `--encoding', `gcj' simply uses the host platform's
`iconv' conversion routine.  This means that in practice `gcj' is
limited by the capabilities of the host platform.

   The names allowed for the argument `--encoding' vary from platform
to platform (since they are not standardized anywhere).  However, `gcj'
implements the encoding named `UTF-8' internally, so if you choose to
use this for your source files you can be assured that it will work on
every host.