Fwd: FW: Character set questions

From: Daniel W. Fink <daniel.fink_at_optimaldba.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 12:07:39 -0700
Message-ID: <50FEE37B.9070804_at_optimaldba.com>

Forwarding for a friend... please respond to Patty.Vonick_at_returnpath.com

• Original Message -------- Subject: FW: Character set questions Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2013 11:42:37 -0700 From: Patty Vonick <Patty.Vonick_at_returnpath.com> To:

Thanks!!!!!

*From:*Patty Vonick
*Sent:* Thursday, January 17, 2013 3:25 PM
*To:* 'oracle-l_at_freelists.org'
*Subject:* Character set questions

Hi Oracle-L

We're trying to wrap our heads around different character sets and have a few questions.

Our DB character sets are as follows:

SYS_at_PROD1 AS SYSDBA> l

   1* select * from nls_database_parameters

SYS_at_PROD1 AS SYSDBA> i

   2 order by parameter

   3 /

PARAMETER                      VALUE

------------------------------ ----------------------------------------

NLS_CALENDAR GREGORIAN NLS_CHARACTERSET WE8ISO8859P1

NLS_COMP                       BINARY

NLS_CSMIG_SCHEMA_VERSION       5

NLS_CURRENCY $ NLS_DATE_FORMAT DD-MON-RR NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE AMERICAN NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY $ NLS_ISO_CURRENCY AMERICA NLS_LANGUAGE AMERICAN NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS BYTE NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET AL16UTF16 NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP FALSE NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS ., NLS_RDBMS_VERSION 11.2.0.3.0 NLS_SAVED_NCHAR_CS WE8ISO8859P1

NLS_SORT                       BINARY

NLS_TERRITORY                  AMERICA

NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZH:TZM NLS_TIME_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZH:TZM 22 rows selected.

1.Our client character set is AL32UTF8

a.From within PHP, if we want to convert data from the NVARCHAR2 columns (which are AL16UTF16), we need to explicitly convert using utl_raw, then convert...

i.SELECT subject, utl_raw.cast_to_raw(convert(subject,'AL32UTF8')) as subject2

b.Why? Why isn't this conversion implicit/automatic?

2.Second, does anyone know how to identify the character set of a data file? For example, if someone provides us with data -- how do we know the character set of the data in that file?

Thanks in advance for your help!

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Received on Tue Jan 22 2013 - 20:07:39 CET