Re: Character set

Irfan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> It sounds me little strange that if the database character set is
> changed for any reason. I currently work on one character set since 7
> years and there was no need for change for us to our requirements. But
> in an interview it was asked how to change the character set. But there
> is a way to change, but not so frequent or unless required right? And
> not like a performance parameter-- Please share your experience.
> Thanks
> Irfan
>

The world is shrinking. Companies that once thought themselves to be only a local concern find themselves with customers from further and further afield, and eventually they find themselves having to implement i18n or risk losing those customers; François will put up with being incorrectly referred to as Francois for a while but will consider this poor service and may eventually decide to switch to a company that can be bothered to spell his name correctly. Those that started out with a US7ASCII database find themselves with European customers and have to change to WE8ISO8859P1. Then the Euro comes along and they have to move to WE8SIO8859P15. Then a big Russian customer turns up (where big means the profits from the sales far exceed the cost of implementing the necessary changes)...

Certainly if the system is completely specified at the outset and ongoing changes to that system strictly prohibited, changing the characterset will never be necessary. But where the cost of modifications is substantially less than a complete redesign from scratch, the obvious choice is to modify the existing system. Received on Wed Mar 22 2006 - 03:42:54 CST