Message6105

A protoype on Windows shows that this only works using java 6:

C:\stuff>"c:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.5.0_22\bin\java" ConsoleTest
encoding: null

C:\stuff>java -version
java version "1.6.0_20"

C:\stuff>java ConsoleTest
encoding: cp437


Here is the source of ConsoleTest.java:

  private static String getConsoleEncoding() {
    String encoding = null;
    try {
      Class<?> consoleClass = Class.forName("java.io.Console");
      Method encodingMethod = consoleClass.getDeclaredMethod("encoding");
      encodingMethod.setAccessible(true);
      encoding = (String) encodingMethod.invoke(consoleClass);
    } catch (Exception e) {
      // ignore any exception
    }
    return encoding;
  }

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println("encoding: " + getConsoleEncoding());
  }