A String
in Java can be converted to "binary" with its getBytes(Charset)
method.
byte[] encoded = "????????!".getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
The argument to this method is a "character-encoding"; this is a standardized mapping between a character and a sequence of bytes. Often, each character is encoded to a single byte, but there aren't enough unique byte values to represent every character in every language. Other encodings use multiple bytes, so they can handle a wider range of characters.
Usually, the encoding to use will be specified by some standard or protocol that you are implementing. If you are creating your own interface, and have the freedom to choose, "UTF-8" is an easy, safe, and widely supported encoding.