Re: what characterset to use?

On Fri, 31 Aug 2007 06:52:46 -0700, Ben <balvey_at_comcast.net> wrote:

>He was agreeing that Oracle's documentation is confusing and in
>certain parts SOUNDS LIKE that is what they suggest, key words 'SOUNDS
>LIKE'. I didn't read that as him suggesting setting the two to be the
>same, please re-read and try to comprehend.

It doesn't matter how often he uses 'SOUNDS LIKE': he is misrepresenting Oracle's point of view on this. Oracle's point of view is: character set should always equate characterset of O/S on *both sides*.
If that means character set conversion, so be it.

So if you have a database on Unix, as Unix doesn't support MSWIN1252, the database characterset should WE8ISO8859P15. If your clients are Windows your characterset should be MSWIN1252 on the client, as Windows doesn't support WE8ISO8859P15. If you are running in a DOS box, your characterset should be set to WEPC850.
So if he states it 'SOUNDS LIKE' Oracle recommends setting everything to MSWIN1252: Oracle never recommended that, and implementing his advice is outright dangerous if you have a database running on Unix.

He *cheats* when he is stating Oracle recommends using UTF8. That is a recent recommendation which applies to 10g and higher.

-- 
Sybrand Bakker
Senior Oracle DBA