How to Print Characters in Java

In the Java programming language, applications handle characters by using the Unicode standard encoding. Each Java application has a "standard output," that is, a stream where its output will be sent by default. Programmers can define that standard output to be a console, a network socket or a stream of some other sort -- the same application code will handle all cases without modification. You can print characters by having your Java application send them to standard output.

Instructions

1. Include the following line at the beginning of your Java code:

   import java.lang.System;

2. Send standard ASCII characters to standard output by reading them from keyboard input or by including literals as part of program text, as in the following example:

   String myASCIIString = "quick brown fox";

   System.out.println(myASCIIString);

   Stream "System.out" is, by convention, the standard output available to your Java code.

3. Send non-printable characters to standard output by storing them into Java variables using the Unicode escape sequence. Java represents Unicode characters using the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP), a 16-bit encoding. The following sample code assigns the Aleph character (first letter of the Hebrew alphabet) to a string, and prints it out on standard output:

   String myNonASCIIString = "\u05D0";

   System.out.println(myNonASCIIString);

References

• Oracle: Java: Class System

Resources

• Unicode: Roadmap to the BMP