Re: Oracle 8i + changing language

Beserko <beserkobob_at_yahoo.ca> wrote in message news:<pan.2003.01.04.06.28.02.78541.4768_at_yahoo.ca>...
> Check out if you could do it with Unicode instead of
> ISOXXX which are subsets of Unicode.
>
> On Fri, 03 Jan 2003 21:04:37 -0500, Ed_Zep wrote:
>
> > Hi.
> >
> > I have to change the character set of the databases at our university
> > from US7ASCII so that we can print European accents on letters. Eg. ç,
> > è, etc. This has to include western and central/eastern European.
> >
> > My questions are:
> >
> > 1. Can I have WEISO... and EEISO... on the same database at the same
> > time?
> >
> > 2. If so, what's the best way of doing this? Do I need to export,
> > recreate the db. and import having changed the character set i the
> > crdb####.sql file? I tried this, but had problems. Is it possible to
> > have a script that rebuilds the database without data and then I can do
> > the import?
> >
> > I know Oracle 8i has a utility to change the character set without
> > having to rebuild the db. Has anyone used it? Should I use it?
> >
> > Many thanks in advance.
> >
> > Happy New Year.
> >
> > Ed.

Hi Ed,

In short, you can easily change the character set of your db IF the new character set is a superset of the old AND if they are both single-byte sets :

ALTER DATABASE CHARACTER SET <new set>; ALTER DATABASE NATIONAL CHARACTER SET <new national set> ;

If you want to have both WEISO... and EEISO in your DB, make WEISO... the character set and EEISO... the national character set in above.

This applies to 8i. In 9i you are forced to use Unicode as National character set. You should consider to convert both character sets to Unicode once and for all.

If you wanna change your charset from a single-byte to a multi-byte charset or from an old charset which is not a subset of the new one, more steps are involved. See "Oracle9i Globalization Support Guide" for details.

• Kenneth Koenraadt