Sun Java System Application Server Enterprise Edition 8.1 2005Q2 Developer's Guide

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### Servlets

This section explains how the Application Server determines the character encoding for the servlet request and the servlet response. For encodings you can use, see `http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/guide/intl/encoding.doc.html`.

#### Servlet Request

When processing a servlet request, the server uses the following order of precedence, first to last, to determine the request character encoding:

- The ```getCharacterEncoding()` method.

- A hidden field in the form, specified by the `form-hint-field` attribute of the `parameter-encoding` element in the `sun-web.xml` file.

- The character encoding set in the `default-charset` attribute of the `parameter-encoding` element in the `sun-web.xml` file.

- The default, which is `ISO-8859-1`.

For details about the `parameter-encoding` element, see parameter-encoding.

#### Servlet Response

When processing a servlet response, the server uses the following order of precedence, first to last, to determine the response character encoding:

- The `setCharacterEncoding()` or ```setContentType()` method.

- The ```setLocale()` method.

- The default, which is `ISO-8859-1`.

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