Is there a way to make maven build class files with UTF-8 without using the external JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS?

Question

I don't want to be dependable on a external environment variable to force maven to build my classes with UTF-8. On Mac, I was getting all sorts of problems when building with maven. Only the option below solved the problem:

export JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS=-Dfile.encoding=UTF-8
mvn clean install

However I am distributing my project and it does NOT make sense to rely on the user to set this environment variable to build the project correctly.

Tried everything as described here: enabling UTF-8 encoding for clojure source files

Anyone has a light on that awesome Maven issue?

Are you seeing an encoding error/warning in the maven output? — andyb, Apr 29 '12 at 07:26

score 35 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

35

@Joop Eggen gave the right answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10367745/962872

It is not enough to define that property. You MUST pass it inside the appropriate plugins. It won't go by magic inside there.

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>...</version>
    <configuration>
        <source>1.6</source>
        <target>1.6</target>
        <encoding>${project.build.sourceEncoding}</encoding>
    </configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-resources-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>...</version>
    <configuration>
        <encoding>${project.build.sourceEncoding}</encoding>
    </configuration>
</plugin>
...
<properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
</properties>

edited May 23 '17 at 11:46

Community

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answered Apr 29 '12 at 20:01

chrisapotek

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Nice and thanks for writing it up. Glad you got an answer to both questions in the end. – andyb Apr 29 '12 at 21:08
2

The answer is right, but just for information : According to the official Maven's documentation, only adding the `` tag should be OK. Quote : _For plugins **that follow our guideline for source file encoding**, this is as easy as adding the following property to your POM (or one of its parent POMs):..._ Source : http://maven.apache.org/general.html#encoding-warning – mithrop Jun 27 '14 at 09:04
1

maven-compiler-plugin and maven-resources-plugin documentation says: parameter encoding: Default value is: `${project.build.sourceEncoding}`. So I suppose setting the property is enough nowadays. – leo Oct 12 '15 at 18:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 29 '12 at 00:17

1

Yes there is, define

<properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
</properties>

answered Apr 29 '12 at 00:17

Alexander Pogrebnyak

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This does NOT work on Mac. I tested here many times without success. :( – chrisapotek Apr 29 '12 at 00:28
2

Than you have other problems. Which version of Maven are you using? And which problems did you get? error messages etc. ? – khmarbaise Apr 29 '12 at 14:40

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 13 '13 at 19:16

1

I was running into this problem, but only when running the compile from Emacs. I could not change the project's poms. What worked for me was to put the following in ~/.mavenrc

LANG=en_US.UTF-8

answered Sep 13 '13 at 19:16

dave_nedde

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2

Is there a way to make maven build class files with UTF-8 without using the external JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS?

3 Answers3

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