Re: Unicode general questions

I would hold off on this until you go to 8i. Double byte Unicode is not supported within Oracle with versions below 8, while an earlier version of UTF8 (I believe it is called UTF7) is supported in Oracle 7.3.

In 8 or 8i, you will have the NCHAR and NVARCHAR fields which are there for unicode support. Plus, if you are using java, it works in UTF2 so you are covered completely. One thing to remember is that all your ascii data will now be doubled in size. Double byte for all, what used to single-byte, ascii. This could cause network problems, but since you will be sending across asian characters, you will probably already be ready to deal with the network issues.

Now for UTF8, (still keeping in mind 8 only), you will need to bring your database up in UTF8 character set. Then, your char and varchar will be able to handle UTF8, but you may have to convert to UTF8 from whatever character set your application is in, even java would have to convert from UTF2 to UTF8.

If you go with 7.3, bring your database up in AL24... (I don't remember exactly which one this is). Then, good luck getting your tools to send multibyte characters across the sqlnet layer successfully.

Galen Boyer
Senior Database Architect
Primix Solutions Received on Wed Mar 29 2000 - 14:54:03 CST