Is there way to check charset encoding of .txt file with Java?

Question

Is there way to check is text file (.txt) encoded with Unicode or UTF-8 with Java?

Solution 1

You cannot know with absolute certainty which charset is used in the general case. I found this to be a good read.

http://illegalargumentexception.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/java-rough-guide-to-character-encoding.html

Especially the section Automatic detection of encoding.

Solution 2

Uhm, theoretically, how would you know if it is unicode?

This is the real question. Truthfully, you cannot know, but you can make a decent guess.

See: Java : How to determine the correct charset encoding of a stream for more details. :)