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Re: Changing Character Set

From: Kurt P. Buchleitner <kurt.buchleitner_at_uta.at>
Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2001 11:17:20 +0100
Message-ID: <3A92442F.85AA8531@uta.at>

As far as I know there is the character-set 'inside' the database and the one at the client.
Typical for client-server-computing systems.

The one in the database is set when creating the database. Always use the suitable character set as you wont be able to change this later if you use USASCII7, the default. You will never be able to store 'special characters'.

Each application writing data into the db or reading data from the db has to have a character-definition set in the environment (at the client-side).

e.g. unix
>env|grep NLS

NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8ISO8859P1
same on NT

means, language is American English and character set is WE8ISO8859P1 (Wester Europe Iso.....)

e.g. export/import, where most error occur:

if you dont set NLS_LANG in environment and do an export, USASCII7 could be taken as default, and all special characters would be lost. Importing this data into another database, or importing correctly exported data with USASCII7 as NLS_LANG is not specified, will result in loss of special characters outside USASCII7 (7bit pattern).

always check in export-log or import-log for this message at the beginning:

Export done in WE8ISO8859P1 character set and WE8ISO8859P1 NCHAR character set

WE8ISO8859P1 would be a suitable character-set for you as WE stand for Western-Europe.
Dont remember what P1 or P9 is standig for. This might be different local European sets.

But you can find a lot information on Oracle Dokumentation CD or http://metalink.oracle.com

kurt :-)

LF wrote:

> Greetings All, I need to enable my database to accommodate five European
> Languages as
> well as three Asian Languages. I determined that the Character Set UTF-8
> will allow me
> to do this. However, I am a bit confused with the difference between the
> database
> character set and the national character set(I am running 8i II on Solaris
> 2.7). Do I need
> to set both or do I just need to set the database character set? Ideally I
> would like it if I
> did not have to change my table column types(e.g. varchar -> nvarchar). I
> realize that I
> will probably have to change the size of the varchar and char fields to
> allow for the size
> difference in characters(e.g varchar(10) -> varchar(30)). I would
> appreciate it if someone
> can give me the quick and the dirty of what I should do, or, what the best
> thing is to do.
>
> Regards, LF
Received on Tue Feb 20 2001 - 04:17:20 CST

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