How do I encode/decode UTF-16LE byte arrays with a BOM?

Question

I need to encode/decode UTF-16 byte arrays to and from java.lang.String. The byte arrays are given to me with a Byte Order Marker (BOM), and I need to encoded b

Answer 1

First off, for decoding you can use the character set "UTF-16"; that automatically detects an initial BOM. For encoding UTF-16BE, you can also use the "UTF-16" character set - that'll write a proper BOM and then output big endian stuff.

For encoding to little endian with a BOM, I don't think your current code is too bad, even with the double allocation (unless your strings are truly monstrous). What you might want to do if they are is not deal with a byte array but rather a java.nio ByteBuffer, and use the java.nio.charset.CharsetEncoder class. (Which you can get from Charset.forName("UTF-16LE").newEncoder()).