I have defined a java class, but only need to output some of the fields of this class into an XML. The returned type must be a String. I first opted for the easiest way using a StringBuffer. However, when I tried to process the output String represenation, it failed. I think it is mostly likely because there are some characters that are not encoded in the UTF-8 in the input. Could someone tell me what is the best way to handle this? Thanks.