Creating Unicode character from its number

Question

I want to display a Unicode character in Java. If I do this, it works just fine:

String symbol = \"\\u2202\";

symbol is equal to \"∂\". That\'

Answer 1

The code below will write the 4 unicode chars (represented by decimals) for the word "be" in Japanese. Yes, the verb "be" in Japanese has 4 chars! The value of characters is in decimal and it has been read into an array of String[] -- using split for instance. If you have Octal or Hex, parseInt take a radix as well.

// pseudo code
// 1. init the String[] containing the 4 unicodes in decima :: intsInStrs 
// 2. allocate the proper number of character pairs :: c2s
// 3. Using Integer.parseInt (... with radix or not) get the right int value
// 4. place it in the correct location of in the array of character pairs
// 5. convert c2s[] to String
// 6. print 

String[] intsInStrs = {"12354", "12426", "12414", "12377"}; // 1.
char [] c2s = new char [intsInStrs.length * 2];  // 2.  two chars per unicode

int ii = 0;
for (String intString : intsInStrs) {
    // 3. NB ii*2 because the 16 bit value of Unicode is written in 2 chars
    Character.toChars(Integer.parseInt(intsInStrs[ii]), c2s, ii * 2 ); // 3 + 4
    ++ii; // advance to the next char
}

String symbols = new String(c2s);  // 5.
System.out.println("\nLooooonger code point: " + symbols); // 6.
// I tested it in Eclipse and Java 7 and it works.  Enjoy