Re: Oracle 10G - character sets.

On Jan 8, 12:25 pm, "markpapadakis" <markpapada..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you for replying, Laurenz
>
>
>
> > What exactly do you mean by 'omegas'?
> > Do you mean the greek character with UNICODE code point 0x03A9 or 0x03C9
> > or are you referring to the five-character string 'omega'?Omegas are 'Ώ'. That is, not the five character string.
>
>
>
> > > The rows are in WE8MSWIN1252 encoding - setting NLS_LANG to
> > > GREEK_GREECE.EL8ISO8859P works just fine with sqlplus. However, it
> > > doesn't with my clients ( PHP and C ). Using different NLS_LANG
> > > combinations seem to make a difference, yet I am still getting charset
> > > conversion issues.
>
> > There is no EL8ISO8859P, (Greek would be EL8ISO8859P7).
> > Maybe your problem is a typo really.The typo occurred when I was typing the message - I meant to say
> 'EL8ISO8859P7'. I am sorry about that.
>
> > On the other hand, if you are trying to store greek characters in a
> > database, WE8MSWIN1252 is the wrong database character set for you
> > because there are no greek letters in this codepage (the exception being
> > "mu", used as "micro" sign, which is UNICODE 0x00B5).nls_database_parameters.NLS_CHARACTERSET is 'WE8MSWIN1252'.
> If I set NLS_LANG properly (i.e export
> NLS_LANG=GREEK_GREECE.EL8ISO8859P7 ) and run sqlplus, retrieving the
> rows (i.e SELECT columnNames from TABLE ) works just fine - I get the
> data back in greek.
>
> Both clients seem to acknowledge the fact that NLS_LANG is defined, for
> I get different output depending on the value of the NLS_LANG
> env.variable, however, instead of Greek characters I get either '?' or
> the 'omega' character I mentioned above. It is as if sqlplus is
> performing an additional step when it retrieves the rows - a step I may
> be missing.
>
> > Can you be more detailed on the following points:
>
> > - What is your operating system and Oracle version?Redhat Linux, ES 3
> Oracle Database 10g Express Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0 - Production
>
> > - What is the system character set when you run
> >   a) SQL*PlusGREEK_GREECE.EL8ISO8859P7
>
> >   b) PHPGREEK_GREECE.EL8ISO8859P7
>
> > - What is your database character set?By that, I assume you mean nls_database_parameters.NLS_CHARACTERSET,
> which is == "WE8MSWIN1252"
>
> > - What was the database character set of the database from which the
> >   export files originate?According to import:
>
> import done in US7ASCII character set and AL16UTF16 NCHAR character set
> import server uses WE8MSWIN1252 character set (possible charset
> conversion)
> export client uses EL8ISO8859P7 character set (possible charset
> conversion)
>
> > - What characters cause problems for you?All greek characters for both PHP and C++ client. Work perfectly with
> sqlplus
>
> > - What is the exact setting of NLS_LANG when
> >   a) things look right with SQL*PlusGREEK_GREECE.EL8ISO8859P7 ( or any other territory and language
> combination, as long as the charset portion is == "EL8ISO8859P7 " )
>
> >   b) things look wrong with SQL*PlusAny other charset value other than "EL8ISO8859P7"
>
> >   c) things look wrong with PHPGREEK_GREECE.EL8ISO8859P7  or basically any other possible value.
>
> > - What exactly do you get instead of the problem characters when it is
> >   NOT a question mark?When I use LANG_TERRITORY.UTF8 ( or specify it explicitly using
> OCIEnvNlsCreate() ), I get something like:
> ΒΏeΒΏΒΏsΒΏΒΏΒΏΒΏΒΏΒΏ stΒΏΒΏ ΒΏΒΏΒΏΒΏpΒΏ
>
> Thank you very much,
> Mark
>
>
>
> > Yours,
> > Laurenz Albe- Hide quoted text -- Show quoted text -

You have it all here

According to import:

import done in US7ASCII character set and AL16UTF16 NCHAR character set

import server uses WE8MSWIN1252 character set (possible charset conversion)
export client uses EL8ISO8859P7 character set (possible charset conversion)

NLS_LANG was .US7ASCII in your client session during import. Hence your problem.

-- 
Sybrand Bakker 
Senior Oracle DBA