title: Spring Boot properties files using UTF-8
body: <p>Although Java Properties files traditionally supported only ISO-8859-1, <a href="https://docs.oracle.com/javase/9/intl/internationalization-enhancements-jdk-9.htm#JSINT-GUID-5ED91AA9-B2E3-4E05-8E99-6A009D2B36AF" rel="nofollow noreferrer">JDK 9 and onward supports properties files encoded in UTF-8</a>. And while only JDK 9+ supports UTF-8 with built-in default properties file reading, the same technique it uses could be done in any Java version, wrapping around the properties file to add UTF-8 support and fall back to ISO-8859-1 for backwards compatibility (as the JDK implementation does).</p>
  <p>I'm new to Spring Boot, and I'm reading about all the nifty properties configurations it brings. Does Spring Boot support loading properties from a properties file encoded in UTF-8? And if not, where in the Spring Boot code is properties file reading consolidated, so that I can add this capability and submit a pull request?</p>