Setting the default Java character encoding

Question

How do I properly set the default character encoding used by the JVM (1.5.x) programmatically?

I have read that -Dfile.encoding=whatever used to be the

Answer 1

From the JVM™ Tool Interface documentation…

Since the command-line cannot always be accessed or modified, for example in embedded VMs or simply VMs launched deep within scripts, a JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS variable is provided so that agents may be launched in these cases.

By setting the (Windows) environment variable JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS to -Dfile.encoding=UTF8, the (Java) System property will be set automatically every time a JVM is started. You will know that the parameter has been picked up because the following message will be posted to System.err:

Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Dfile.encoding=UTF8