Re: Import character set issue:

Francesco M. wrote:
> Hi all,
> I have exported on table from one DB to another. I have this issue:
>
> import done in US7ASCII character set and AL16UTF16 NCHAR character
> set
> import server uses WE8ISO8859P1 character set (possible charset
> conversion)
> export server uses US7ASCII NCHAR character set (possible ncharset
> conversion)
>
> I have found an interesting article which explains how to indentify a
> character set:
> http://www.dbaoncall.net/references/ht_identify_charset.html
>
> but I haven't found which are the right steps to avoid this issues.
> Should I change NLS_LANG before import, should I let Oracle do the
> conversion...or what else ?
> Thanks a lot
> Francesco

Try to minimize the number of characterset conversions done during exp/imp. To do that, set your client NLS_LANG to exactly the same as the source database characterset, this would gaurantee no conversions during export. Then keep the same NLS_LANG setting while importing which means there will be only one conversion done during the entire process.

Remember, exp and imp are client tools thus they will use the characterset from NLS_LANG environment variable and NOT the database characterset. If either is different, conversion will take place.

Regards
/Rauf Received on Fri Feb 04 2005 - 06:55:52 CST