2

I have a pom file whose name looks similar to this.

<name>Some Name 😊</name>

But when I performed the maven build, I got this instead.

Some Name 🙂

I set my project encoding to utf-8, as well as the reporting encoding. Here are my properties.

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

I am using Windows 10 and Git Bash. I used the WindowsKey+; key combo to type the character. The character rendered correctly in both Notepad++ and Git Bash (when doing echo). But when I do a maven build in Git Bash, it just shows the messed up text above. I opened the pom file in Notepad++, and the file showed an encoding of UTF-8 on the bottom. I deleted and retyped the characters in Notepad++, in case my IDE was the problem, but no dice. I tried it on CMD, and I got the exact same output. Though, I should mention that, when I tried to do the echo command on CMD, I got 2 boxes with ?'s in them. So maybe CMD just can't do it to begin with. But Git Bash certainly can -- the echo command worked perfectly, but the maven output didn't work.

How do I get emoji's into my project name for my Maven build?

Here are the steps for a recreatable example.

  1. Make a new directory, then enter it.

  2. Copy the following text into a file called pom.xml.

      <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
       xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
       xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">

       <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

       <groupId>some.group</groupId>
       <artifactId>some.project</artifactId>
       <version>123</version>
       <packaging>pom</packaging>

       <name>Some Name 🙂</name>

 </project>

  3. Run the following command in the directory -- mvn clean.

  4. I get this bad output as one of the lines.

      [INFO] Building Some Name 🙂 123

Please let me know if more info is needed.

Improve this question
24
  • 2
    Try it using Powershell. Run this first [Console]::InputEncoding = [Console]::OutputEncoding = New-Object System.Text.UTF8Encoding Commented Jun 30 at 19:31
  • 1
    Doing [Console]::OutputEncoding = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8 for PowerShell Core and doing chcp 65001 for CMD led to Building MyApp 😊 0.1.0-SNAPSHOT being printed in both cases. Commented Jul 1 at 15:39
  • 2
    This is definitely a console/CMD problem, not a problem with your build or with Maven. The build is working perfectly: it is emitting the bytes F0 9F 99 82 (the bytes which represent 🙂 in the MS-DOS CP437 character set), which is the UTF-8 sequence for your emoji, code point 1f642. Commented Jul 1 at 15:42
  • 1
    This other answer may work better for Git Bash (for whatever reason, setting MAVEN_OPTS stopped working when trying it in a new window; not sure what I did differently). Commented Jul 1 at 15:50
  • 1
    It worked! For those following along, the command to punch into Git Bash was chcp.com 65001. Could you turn this into the answer? I'm glad it's working, but I'm not convinced that's the correct way to do things Commented Jul 1 at 21:13

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
0

There's two things at play here, as far as I know.

  1. The encoding used by the terminal.

  2. The encoding used by Java when printing to the standard output and error streams.

When a Java application is launched from a terminal it should be able to pick up/inherit the terminal's output encoding. However, when not launched from a terminal you may have to tell Java which encodings to use for its standard output and error streams, otherwise it will use the platform's defaults. With modern versions of Java (I believe 18+), you can do that with stdout.encoding and stderr.encoding system properties.

Examples (Windows 10/11)

Here's what worked for me on Windows 10/11 with CMD, PowerShell Core, and Git Bash. The following sample project was used with Java 24.0.1 and Maven 3.9.9.

The POM uses the exec-maven-plugin to execute the sample application. There are two executions: exec:java@app and exec:exec@app-forked. The first will execute the application in the same process as Maven and the second will fork the application in its own process. This is to show that how the Java application is launched affects the encoding it uses for its standard output and error streams.

In the CMD, PowerShell Core, and Git Bash examples below, the exec:exec@app-forked execution will always result in Hello, World! ? being printed instead of Hello, World! 🙂, regardless of encoding. At least, it did in my case. To have it print Hello, World! 🙂 when the terminal's encoding is UTF-8, uncomment the -Dstdout.encoding-UTF-8 argument in the execution's configuration.

Note I had the MAVEN_OPTS environment variable set to:

--sun-misc-unsafe-memory-access=allow --enable-native-access=ALL-UNNAMED

To avoid some warnings emitted by Maven's runtime when executing on Java 24.

All commands and their outputs are copy-pasted directly from the terminal (with some user-specific information omitted).

Sample Project

The POM and Java source files are saved with UTF-8 encoding.

pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

  <groupId>com.example</groupId>
  <artifactId>app</artifactId>
  <version>0.1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>

  <name>MyApp 🙂</name>

  <properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    <maven.compiler.release>24</maven.compiler.release>
  </properties>

  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
        <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.5.1</version>
        <executions>

          <!-- exec:java@app -->
          <execution>
            <id>app</id>
            <configuration>
              <mainClass>com.example.app.Main</mainClass>
            </configuration>
          </execution>

          <!-- exec:exec@app-forked -->
          <execution>
            <id>app-forked</id>
            <configuration>
              <executable>java</executable>
              <arguments>
                <!-- <argument>-Dstdout.encoding=UTF-8</argument> -->
                <argument>-cp</argument>
                <classpath/>
                <argument>com.example.app.Main</argument>
              </arguments>
            </configuration>
          </execution>

        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

Main.java:

package com.example.app;

public class Main {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    System.out.println("Hello, World! 🙂");
  }
}

Command Prompt (CMD)

Used Windows Terminal.

Default Encoding

C:\...\emoji-test> chcp
Active code page: 437

C:\...\emoji-test> mvn compile exec:java@app exec:exec@app-forked
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] --------------------------< com.example:app >---------------------------
[INFO] Building MyApp ? 0.1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ app ---
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory C:\...\emoji-test\src\main\resources
[INFO]
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:compile (default-compile) @ app ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:java (app) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:exec (app-forked) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  1.248 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-07-01T18:57:45-06:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

UTF-8 Encoding

C:\...\emoji-test> chcp 65001
Active code page: 65001

C:\...\emoji-test> mvn compile exec:java@app exec:exec@app-forked
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] --------------------------< com.example:app >---------------------------
[INFO] Building MyApp 🙂 0.1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ app ---
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory C:\...\emoji-test\src\main\resources
[INFO]
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:compile (default-compile) @ app ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:java (app) @ app ---
Hello, World! 🙂
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:exec (app-forked) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  1.112 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-07-01T19:00:56-06:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

PowerShell Core 7.5.2

Used Windows Terminal.

Default Encoding

PS C:\...\emoji-test> chcp
Active code page: 437

PS C:\...\emoji-test> [Console]::OutputEncoding

IsSingleByte      : True
EncodingName      : OEM United States
WebName           : ibm437
HeaderName        : ibm437
BodyName          : ibm437
Preamble          :
WindowsCodePage   :
IsBrowserDisplay  :
IsBrowserSave     :
IsMailNewsDisplay :
IsMailNewsSave    :
EncoderFallback   : System.Text.InternalEncoderBestFitFallback
DecoderFallback   : System.Text.InternalDecoderBestFitFallback
IsReadOnly        : False
CodePage          : 437

PS C:\...\emoji-test> mvn compile exec:java@app exec:exec@app-forked
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] --------------------------< com.example:app >---------------------------
[INFO] Building MyApp ? 0.1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ app ---
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory C:\...\emoji-test\src\main\resources
[INFO]
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:compile (default-compile) @ app ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:java (app) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:exec (app-forked) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  1.304 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-07-01T19:11:47-06:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

UTF-8 Encoding

PS C:\...\emoji-test> chcp 65001
Active code page: 65001

PS C:\...\emoji-test> [Console]::OutputEncoding = [Text.Encoding]::UTF8

PS C:\...\emoji-test> mvn compile exec:java@app exec:exec@app-forked
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] --------------------------< com.example:app >---------------------------
[INFO] Building MyApp 🙂 0.1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ app ---
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory C:\...\emoji-test\src\main\resources
[INFO]
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:compile (default-compile) @ app ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:java (app) @ app ---
Hello, World! 🙂
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:exec (app-forked) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  1.098 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-07-01T19:13:27-06:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note both the code page and [Console]::OutputEncoding were set to UTF-8.

Git Bash

Used Git Bash installed with Git version 2.50.0.windows.2.

First, I followed this answer to set the locale encodings in the terminal's options. That leads to the following output:

user@host MINGW64 /.../emoji-test
$ locale
LANG=
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="C.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="C.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="C.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="C.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="C.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

I'm not sure if that was necessary.

Second, I followed this answer (to the same question). It mentioned chcp.com, which seems to be the same as chcp used previously.

Default Encoding

user@host MINGW64 /.../emoji-test
$ chcp.com
Active code page: 437

user@host MINGW64 /.../emoji-test
$ mvn compile exec:java@app exec:exec@app-forked
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] --------------------------< com.example:app >---------------------------
[INFO] Building MyApp ? 0.1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ app ---
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory C:\...\src\main\resources
[INFO]
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:compile (default-compile) @ app ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:java (app) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:exec (app-forked) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  1.409 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-07-01T19:25:54-06:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Setting LANG to C.UTF-8 or en_US.UTF-8 didn't help.

UTF-8 Encoding

user@host MINGW64 /.../emoji-test
$ chcp.com 65001
Active code page: 65001

user@host MINGW64 /.../emoji-test
$ mvn compile exec:java@app exec:exec@app-forked
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] --------------------------< com.example:app >---------------------------
[INFO] Building MyApp 🙂 0.1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO]   from pom.xml
[INFO] --------------------------------[ jar ]---------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] --- resources:3.3.1:resources (default-resources) @ app ---
[INFO] skip non existing resourceDirectory C:\...\emoji-test\src\main\resources
[INFO]
[INFO] --- compiler:3.13.0:compile (default-compile) @ app ---
[INFO] Nothing to compile - all classes are up to date.
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:java (app) @ app ---
Hello, World! 🙂
[INFO]
[INFO] --- exec:3.5.1:exec (app-forked) @ app ---
Hello, World! ?
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time:  1.263 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2025-07-01T19:28:44-06:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Though note in the terminal the 🙂 emoji had no color.

Remarks

Setting the active code page with chcp seems to be the common denominator. Though [Console]::OutputEncoding also had to be set for PowerShell Core.

I don't know if there's a system-wide way to set the default code page. For PowerShell you can create a profile script that sets the code page and output encoding. For Git Bash I believe you can add the config to your .bashrc file. Not sure about CMD.

Perhaps https://superuser.com/questions/269818/change-default-code-page-of-windows-console-to-utf-8 can help here.

Improve this answer
Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.