Encoding has influence on the way IntelliJ IDEA reads or writes files. If a file has been modified but not yet saved, any changes in encoding affect file writing; if a file has not been modified, then reading is affected. IntelliJ IDEA suggests specific ways to change encoding of a file according to its type, using the Status bar, or the editor.
| Encoding | Can be changed in |
|---|---|
| File encoding is specified within the file, for example, in XML. | If a file contains explicit encoding declaration, you can change it in the Editor. In this case IntelliJ IDEA provides code completion. |
| File encoding is defined by BOM. | In this case, you can't change encoding with which IntelliJ IDEA reads the file, but it is still possible to change encoding for writing such file. |
| UTF characters are detected in the file contents. | IntelliJ IDEA provides an option that automatically changes file encoding to UTF,
if the file contents can be reasonably interpreted as UTF. This option only works for reading; a file can be saved with any encoding. |
| Properties files. | For the properties files, system default encoding is used. Though the characters in the other encodings are processed as unknown symbols, it is still possible to use them, by feeding such characters as escape sequences (for which IntelliJ IDEA provides the Transparent native-to-ASCII conversion option), or defining the default encoding for properties files. |
