Note: this only works for low characters i.e. below 0x8000, This works for all ASCII characters.
I would do an XOR each charAt() to create a new String. Like
String s, key;
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
for(int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++)
sb.append((char)(s.charAt(i) ^ key.charAt(i % key.length())));
String result = sb.toString();
In response to @user467257's comment
If your input/output is utf-8 and you xor "a" and "æ", you are left with an invalid utf-8 string consisting of one character (decimal 135, a continuation character).
It is the char
values which are being xor'ed, but the byte values and this produces a character whichc an be UTF-8 encoded.
public static void main(String... args) throws UnsupportedEncodingException {
char ch1 = 'a';
char ch2 = 'æ';
char ch3 = (char) (ch1 ^ ch2);
System.out.println((int) ch3 + " UTF-8 encoded is " + Arrays.toString(String.valueOf(ch3).getBytes("UTF-8")));
}
prints
135 UTF-8 encoded is [-62, -121]