Read and Write Java Properties without unicode escapes

this question has probably been asked and answered 100 times but unfortunately I have not found anything suitable for my issue.

The following situation: I have the problem that when I read properties to change them and then write them again, all special characters are unicode escaped.

for example ":" becomes "\:" or
Descripción becomes Descripci\u00F3n

Is there a way to change the store method so that the special characters are not escaped?

Thanks a lot

That's my code to write the properties:

  private static void writeUpdatedPropertiesFile(Properties newProperties, File sourceAndDestinationFile) {
    sourceAndDestinationFile.delete();
    try (FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(sourceAndDestinationFile)) {
      newProperties.store(out, null);
    }
    catch (final IOException e) {
      e.printStackTrace();
    }
  }

You can use store(Writer) instead of store(OutputStream). You can construct an OutputStreamWriter with any charset you wish:

try (Writer out = new BufferedWriter(
    new OutputStreamWriter(
        new FileOutputStream(sourceAndDestinationFile),
        StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) {

    newProperties.store(out, null);

} catch (IOException e) {
    e.printStackTrace();
}

Of course, it is your responsibility to know that the file is a UTF-8 file, and to read it using load(Reader) instead of using an InputStream:

try (Reader in = new BufferedReader(
    new InputStreamReader(
        new FileInputStream(sourceAndDestinationFile),
        StandardCharsets.UTF_8))) {

    properties.load(in);
} catch (IOException e) {
    // ...
}

I solved it with a custom writer method:

    private static void writeProperties(Properties properties, File destinationFile) {

    try (final BufferedWriter writer = new BufferedWriter(
        new OutputStreamWriter(new FileOutputStream(destinationFile), "Cp1252"))) {
      for (final Object o : properties.entrySet()) {
        final String keyValue = o.toString();
        writer.write(keyValue + "\r\n");
      }
    }
    catch (final IOException e) {
      // TODO Auto-generated catch block
      e.printStackTrace();
    }

  }