Re: Using two different character sets in one database

"Eric Menzel" <oracle8_at_firemail.de> wrote in message news:58d6a85c.0207292312.6f3ee876_at_posting.google.com...
> > > In the above situation, when a
> > > client inserts WE8MSWIN1252 data reading it with UTF8 shows garbage.
> >
> > Did the client have the proper NLS_LANG env setting enabled when he put this data?
>
> Yes, that's why I wrote, what character set they use to insert data.
>
> > I would suggest that you read the NLS faq on technet:
> > http://otn.oracle.com/products/oracle8i/htdocs/faq_combined.htm
>
> Thank you, but I already did that. I found nothing about how Oracle
> handles character set conversion like WE8ISO8859P1->UTF8. I'll keep
> searching.

Thats the whole point of the article I listed above. Oracle handles the conversion automatically ... or in other words .. based on your NLS_LANG setting. I feel at a loss trying to show you an example (due to varying charactersets) .. however I'll try to explain briefly:

• User has some WE8ISO8859P1 data which he wants to insert. Steps to follow:
  1. set his env variable NLS_LANG to something like American_America.WE8ISO8859P1 In Windows this is is set in the registry. In UNIX, you would set it in your .profile ... or explicitly.
  2. Goes forward and inserts this data. Based on the NLS_LANG setting, Oracle will convert the character data present in WE8ISO8859P1 characterset ... into UTF8 (which is the database character set). Thus in the database the data is present in UTF8 format.
• You now need to read this data:
  1. You will set the env variable to something like American_America.UTF8 (Since the data is in UTF8 ..). You need to ensure that the terminal or tool you are using is unicode compliant (i.e. it can display data in UTF8 format .. and is set to do that). i.e. The telnet terminal understands that the data is being displayed in UTF8 (Not sure if I explained this well).
  2. A select on the data will now display data properly

You might see weird/garbage data if you don't follow the above steps. For example: If client data is in UTF8 and he has set NLS_LANG to characterset WE8ISO8859P1 You will see garbage data, since Oracle tried converting data from WE8ISO.. to UTF8 and thus messed it up.
and/or if you have set your NLS_LANG to non-UTF8 .. you might not see that data properly.

Hope this helps,

Anurag

>
> Thanks anyway,
>
> Eric
Received on Tue Jul 30 2002 - 19:50:48 CDT