Brain cramp: reading an IFS file from program running on PC

Folks:

I'm having a brain cramp ... what's wrong with this code?

I'm trying to load a properties file from the IFS to determine what, if any, default java version a user has. The code is running on a PC.

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User user = new User(as400, as400.getUserId());
user.loadUserInformation();

String homedir = user.getHomeDirectory();

String propertiesFile = homedir + IFSFile.separatorChar + "SystemDefault.properties";

IFSFile file = new IFSFile(as400, propertiesFile);
int ccsid = file.getCCSID();

Properties defaults = new Properties();

IFSFileInputStream is = new IFSFileInputStream(file);

defaults.load(is);

is.close();

String javaVersion = defaults.getProperty("java.version");
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The bytes I'm getting in the properties are correct ... but they are the ebcdic values, not unicode.

The IFS file has a CCSID of 37.

Thanks!

david