Re: mod_plsql / dad / character set problem

From: Laurenz Albe <invite_at_spam.to.invalid>
Date: 20 Jul 2006 11:51:12 GMT
Message-ID: <1153396271.294142@proxy.dienste.wien.at>

Frank van Bortel <frank.van.bortel_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>> In ISO 8859-1 the character 0x80 is undefined, left empty, it is an illegal
>> character.

> 
> So be it - it's stored as a meaningless 0x80, then. Display it in an
> environment that will display 0x80 as Euro, and you're done!
> 

>> The problem - that I was so bold to call a bug - is that when Oracle uses
>> a single byte character set and does NOT do character conversion (because
>> client and server character set are identical), it will NOT check if a
>> character is legal or not, it will just accept any byte as a valid
>> character.

>
> So - revert to making db and client char set the same.

Of course, if you can do that, it will work.

But the database is inconsistent (sort of), and you rely on a hack. You will get problems sooner or later.

As soon as - for whatever reason - you have to do a character set conversion, you're up shit creek.

For example (I am not sure if this example is correct, but it may serve to give you an idea of what I mean) consider you access the database via JDBC.

Java uses a Unicode codepage, so there will be a character set conversion. Your Euro sign should arrive as garbage.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe Received on Thu Jul 20 2006 - 06:51:12 CDT