SQL*Plus and ASCII char > 128 (NLS issue)

I'm running Oracle 8.0.4 on HU/UX 10.2. If you wish, conduct the following experiement:

Create a file (let's call it x.sql), which contains simply the following INSERT statement:

insert into dud values ('<ocirc>abc');

where <ocirc> is actually a single character of the ascii value 244 (o with a carat/circumvent on top). The table dud simply contains one column (c1 varchar2(200)). After I did a 'sqlplus user/passwd @x.sql', I query the dud table. The returned data shows 'tabc'. The ascii value of 't' is 116, which is what you get if you take 244 and then set the 8th bit (the most significat bit) to 0. So my point is that SQL*Plus is stripping off the 8th bit, which prevents me from inserting European characters (ascii 128 thru 255). Anyone knows how to get SQL*Plus not to do that? Called Oracle support and haven't heard a thing from them for 2 days. Guess they are stumped (or just ignoring me...)

thanks

Pei Received on Tue Oct 20 1998 - 22:42:06 CDT