RE: character set migration

The Globalization Support Guide lists the character set subsets and supersets  

http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/server.920/a96529/appa .htm#974236  

Unfortunately, ISO 8859-15 is not a strict binary superset of ISO 8859-1, so a direct ALTER DATABASE is not possible. Doing an export and import would be the preferred solution (though there are some unsupported "work arounds" that may be possible).  

Make sure that you run the Oracle character set scanner before making any changes to your character set to ensure that you don't corrupt your data.  

Justin Cave <jcave_at_ddbcinc.com>

Distributed Database Consulting, Inc.

http://www.ddbcinc.com

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org] On Behalf Of Jeroen van Sluisdam Sent: Friday, November 04, 2005 11:13 AM To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: character set migration    

Hi,

I encountered the demand to store the euro sign. With the current character set impossible.
So I have to migrate to a new one. Docs state alter database character set is possible when new character set is a superset.

Alternative is to export and import which is not a realistic at this time for this organization.
I have 2 questions:
1) My current character set is WE8ISO8859P1, I understood WE8ISO8859P15 does contain the euro
sign but is this a superset?
2) Any experiences with alter database character set? Is this a solution without risks? I have about 3 tables
with either long or clob type fields so I might have to export and import those only, but these are not about currencies so

should I export those?

Hope you can shed some light on this,

Tnx,

Jeroen

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l