Re: Character set conversion and database size

> Does the same idea apply a VARCHAR2 column whose contents can be coded as single bytes or does "Hello world!" actually take twice as much space in
> Unicode as it does in the default character set?

The official Oracle documentation answers your question (as it depends on the stored characters): http://docs.oracle.com/database/121/NLSPG/ch6unicode.htm#i1006758

The other question would be, if the VARCHAR2 column definition is using the byte or character syntax. Be aware that your current VARCHAR2 column width may need adjustments.  

Best Regards
Stefan Koehler

Freelance Oracle performance consultant and researcher Homepage: http://www.soocs.de
Twitter: _at_OracleSK

> "Schauss, Peter (ESS)" <peter.schauss_at_ngc.com> hat am 14. August 2015 um 21:08 geschrieben:
>
>
> Oracle 12.1.0.2 on Red Hat Linux.
>
> IT management is pushing us to migrate our databases to the Unicode character set ( NLS_CHARACTERSET= WE8MSWIN1252 to AL32UTF8). One of my internal
> customers is concerned that conversion to multibyte characters will dramatically increase the size of the database. I know that for VARCHAR2s Oracle
> only allocates storage for the actual characters stored in the string regardless maximum defined size of the column. Does the same idea apply a
> VARCHAR2 column whose contents can be coded as single bytes or does "Hello world!" actually take twice as much space in Unicode as it does in the
> default character set?
>
> Thanks,
> Peter

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