Apostrophe Problem

[Rohit Dhodapkar]

Iam doing the following steps :

I copy text (For Example: JOHN's) containing a apostrophe from the Microsoft Word document and paste it in a JSP Text box rather then righting JOHN's directly in the text box.

Then submit the jsp so that value in the text box gets entered into the database table .

Now what I am finding gets entered in the table is JOHN�s . So the apostrophe gets converted to � .

I dont know why this is happening or how to resolve this..Please help me regarding this..
[ December 01, 2006: Message edited by: Ben Souther ]

[Ben Souther]

Welcome to JavaRanch!

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I've removed the offending text for you.

As to your original question...
Nobody on this list will be able to help you unless you tell us the details of how you're writing these values to the database.

What database are you using?
What middleware are you using to write to it.
If it's JDBC, what driver are you using.

What does the Java code that writes to the database look like?
Post the relevant sections.
[ December 01, 2006: Message edited by: Ben Souther ]

[William Brogden]

Now what I am finding gets entered in the table is JOHN�s . So the apostrophe gets converted to � .

Sounds like the accursed MS Word "smart" punctuation problem to me - thats not a real ASCII apostrophe. This happens all the time when people cut from Word and paste into browser forms.
This looks like a pretty good review of the problem.
You will have to replace "smart" punctuation with standard characters - Java's regex toolkit is good for this.

Bill

[Paul Clapham]

And this is a good explanation of what to do.

[Rohit Dhodapkar]

Thanks William and Paul .. I will try your solution and let you know if I still face any problem ..

[Rohit Dhodapkar]

William,

I am trying to use java.util.regex package..
My Code looks like this :

String testName = "Rohit�s"
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("�");
Matcher m = p.matcher(testName);
if(m.find())
{
testName = m.replaceAll("'");
}
The output is Rohit's which is correct.

The thing is that if I have multiple different special characters which can appear in string testName randomly but do not make a specific pattern Iam not able to replace them all.
Ex..

String testName = "�Rohit�s"
Pattern p = Pattern.compile("��");
Matcher m = p.matcher(testName);
if(m.find())
{
testName = m.replaceAll("'");
}
The output is �Rohit's which is incorrect but the output should be 'Rohit's.

Thanks in advance..

[William Brogden]

The output is ‘Rohit's which is incorrect but the output should be 'Rohit's.

All I can say is replaceAll works for me - perhaps you really have two different character codes that look like `.

You will of course have to have a Pattern for each non standard character - I make the various Pattern objects static variables since they can be reused.

Bill