Re: Database character set conversion.
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:20:14 -0400
Message-ID: <b9e32dc90908120820x46101f36ic5f6af8e20d885a_at_mail.gmail.com>
Fred Tilly wrote:
>We have two applications that use one database, and the database is
configured
>with character set WE8ISO8859P1. One of the applications needs to handle
>multiple languages so the vendor wants us to convert ot a 16 bit character
set.
>However the other application in the database has not been tested against a
>16bit database, and there are a lot of tables with fields defined as
>varchar2(4000) and clobs.
>Has anyone actually done such a conversion and is there anything we should
be
>looking out for.
My first stop for character set conversions is usually the CSSCAN utility. You can run it against your database and indicate the character set you would like to convert to and it will check all fields for any conversion anomalies and report them.
Here is a pointer to the documentation for 10g: http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14225/ch12scanner.htm#sthref1571
As far as application issues, an analysis of your technology stack would be in order. For projects such as this I usually lean on my developers to analyze their client apps and access methods for character set compatibility. If all else fails you can convert a test system and have QA give the data a once over.
-Dave
-- Dave Mann www.brainio.us www.ba6.us - Database Stuff - http://www.ba6.us/rss.xml -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-lReceived on Wed Aug 12 2009 - 10:20:14 CDT