FYI, we are well aware of this shortcoming (modified UTF-8), and with each release try to mitigate it even further. The problem is that it is so deep in the code (note that it is since Java 1.0) that it is not easy to eliminate without breaking a lot of existing stuff, something that the Java team strive to avoid.
This would have been a non-issue if only the relevant methods had been called readString and writeString instead of readUTF and writeUTF, and the documents had simply not mentioned UTF-8 at all. Is there any chance such methods could be added and readUTF and writeUTF deprecated?
-- Elliotte Rusty Harold [EMAIL PROTECTED] XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published! http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim
