Name: dbT83986 Date: 02/15/99


I need to construct a String from a byte array using the String
constructer which takes a character encoding arguement (The byte
array comes from an external source and the encoding is not necessarily
the default for the VM). The problem is that I don't know what value
to supply. I have snooped in the classes.zip file and discovered values
that work based on the names of classes in sun.io. These are not portable
between VMs, however. Testing with Microsoft's VM proved that different
values are used.

The API presented by String and other Java classes is barely useable
and not portable if it is not completely defined.
(Review ID: 42629)
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