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Oracle® Content Services Administrator's Guide
10g Release 1 (10.1.1)

Part Number B14493-01
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G Oracle Content Services Globalization Support

Oracle Content Services globalization support enables users to store and search documents of heterogeneous character sets and languages in a single Oracle Content Services instance. The globalization infrastructure ensures that the resource strings, error messages, sort order, date, time, numeric, and calendar conventions adapt automatically to any native language and locale.

Globalization support is provided in the Oracle Content Services repository so that the other dependent processes, such as the protocol servers, can share and utilize this support. The major globalization goal for the repository is to ensure efficient storage of documents of heterogeneous character sets and languages, and to allow effective update, retrieval, and search on these documents.

This appendix covers the following topics:

How to Choose the Database Character Set for Oracle Content Services

In the repository, all metadata strings, such as the name of the document or the description, are stored in the VARCHAR2 data type of the Oracle database. Strings stored in this data type are encoded in the database character set specified when a database is created. The document itself, however, is unstructured data and stored in one of the large object data types of the Oracle database, particularly the BLOB data type. The BLOB data type stores content as-is, avoiding any character set conversion on document content. The LONG and CLOB data types store content in the database character set, which requires character set conversion. Conversions can compromise the data integrity and have the potential to convert incorrectly or lose characters.

The full-text search index built on the document content is encoded in the database character set. When a document's content is indexed, the BLOB data is converted from the content's character set to the database character set for creation of the index text tokens. If the content's character set is not a subset of the database character set, the conversion will yield garbage tokens. For example, a database character set of ISO-8859-1 (Western European languages) will not be able to index correctly a Shift-JIS (Japanese) document. To be able to search content effectively, the character set of the documents stored by the users should be considered when selecting the database character set.

If your Oracle Content Services instance will contain multilingual documents, UTF8 is the recommended database character set. UTF8 supports characters defined in the Unicode standard. The Unicode standard solves the problem of many different languages in the same application or database. Unicode is a single, global character set which contains all major living scripts and conforms to international standards. Unicode provides a unique code value for every character, regardless of the platform, program, or language. UTF8 is the 8-bit encoding of Unicode. It is a variable-width encoding and a strict superset of ASCII. One Unicode character can be 1 byte, 2 bytes, 3 bytes, or 4 bytes in UTF8 encoding. Characters from the European scripts are represented in either 1 or 2 bytes. Characters from most Asian scripts are represented in 3 bytes. Supplementary characters are represented in 4 bytes. By using a Unicode-based file system, document content and metadata of different languages can be shared by users with different language preferences in one system.

The Oracle9i database introduces the new character set, AL32UTF-8. In Release 1, AL32UTF-8 was the default character set for Unicode 3.0 deployment. In Release 2, AL32UTF-8 is compliant to the latest Unicode 3.1 standard, which contains the supplementary characters, particularly additional Chinese, Japanese, and Korean ideographs. AL32UTF-8 is the default character set of an Oracle9i database installation.

Note:

Oracle Content Services does not support an AL32UTF-8 database because Oracle Text does not support Chinese, Japanese, and Korean lexers on an AL32UTF-8 database. UTF8 is the recommended database character set for an Unicode-based file system. If Oracle Content Services is installed in an AL32UTF-8 database, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean documents will not get indexed and, thus, will not be searchable.

Oracle Content Services configuration will fail in a Chinese, Japanese, or Korean locale against an AL32UTF-8 database. This is because Oracle Text behaves differently when the database session language is initialized to an Asian language as opposed to American. JDBC initializes the database session language according to the locale of the running application, which in this case is the configuration tool.

How to Make Sure Documents Are Properly Indexed in Oracle Content Services

To support documents in different character sets and languages in a single file system, the repository associates two globalization attributes with each document. They are the character set and language attributes.

Character Set

The character set of a document is used in several situations. When the document content is rendered to a file, the character set of the document is used as the character encoding of the file. When the document is displayed in the browser, the character set of the document is set in the HTTP content-type header. Finally, when a full-text search is built on a text document, Oracle Text uses the character set of the document to convert the data into the database character set before building the index. When a character set is updated, the content is reindexed.

If no character set is specified upon insertion of a document, the repository determines a default character set as follows: the character set of the user's LibrarySession stored in the Localizer object is first used. This is obtained from the user's PrimaryUserProfile information at initialization of the user's LibrarySession.

Language

The language of a document is used as a criterion to limit the search for documents of a particular language. It is also used to build a full-text search index on the document with Oracle Text. Oracle Text's multilexer feature uses the language to identify the specific lexer to parse the document for searchable words. The language-specific lexers need to be defined and associated with a language before the index is built. They are defined as follows:

Table G-1 Language-Specific Lexers

Language Lexer Lexer Option

Brazilian Portuguese

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

Canadian French

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

INDEX THEME

Danish

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

DANISH ALTERNATE SPELLING

Dutch

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

Finnish

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

French

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

INDEX THEME

THEME

LANGUAGE=FRENCH

German

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

GERMAN ALTERNATE SPELLING

Italian

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

Japanese

JAPANESE_VGRAM_LEXER

N/A

Korean

KOREAN_LEXER

N/A

Latin American

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

Spanish Portuguese

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

Simplified Chinese

CHINES_VGRAM_LEXER

N/A

Swedish

BASIC_LEXER

BASE LETTER

SWEDISH ALTERNATE SPELLING

Tradition Chinese

CHINESE_VGRAM_LEXER

N/A

Others

BASIC_LEXER

INDEX THEME

THEME LANGUAGE=ENGLISH

INDEX TEXT


The BASIC_LEXER is used for single-byte languages using white space as a word separator. Asian language lexers cannot use white space as word separators. Instead, they use a V-gram algorithm to parse the documents for searchable keys. Languages that have not been supported by Oracle Text are parsed as English. Oracle Content Services uses the multilexer feature of Oracle Text. It is a global lexer containing German, Danish, Swedish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and Korean sublexers.

If no language is specified upon insertion of a document, the repository determines a default language as follows.

  1. If the character set has been set, the language can most likely be obtained from a 'best-guess' algorithm based on the character set value. For example, a document with a character set of Shift-JIS will most likely be in Japanese.

  2. The default language is obtained from the Localizer of the user's LibrarySession. During initialization of the LibrarySession, the default language is obtained from the user's PrimaryUserProfile.

  3. The defaults for both language and character set is specified by the Subscriber Administrator when a new user is created.

Oracle Content Services identifies languages using Oracle Globalization Support language abbreviations. See "Document Languages Supported in Oracle Content Services" for a list of Oracle Content Services-supported languages.

Service Configuration Properties

There are two service configuration properties that hold default character set and language values for Oracle Content Services Subscribers. The properties are:

  • IFS.SERVICE.DefaultCharacterSet

  • IFS.SERVICE.DefaultLanguage

These two properties are initialized during Oracle Content Services configuration and can later be modified through the Oracle Collaboration Suite Control. The Oracle Content Services default character set should be the same or a subset of the database character set. The character set should be specified in accordance with the IANA standard naming convention. The language should be specified in accordance with Oracle naming for languages. See "Character Sets Supported in Oracle Content Services" and "Document Languages Supported in Oracle Content Services" for a list of Oracle Content Services-supported character sets and languages.

Globalization and the Oracle Content Services Protocols

Some protocols do not support multibyte user names. Access through WebDAV and HTTP is not available for user names that contain multibyte characters. FTP allows multibyte user names. In addition, some protocols require that user passwords be in ASCII.

You can use a protocol command character set that is different from the default document character set. A protocol command character set is the character set you use to type commands in FTP or other protocols.

FTP

Oracle Content Services provides the following server configuration properties to specify the default FTP command character set:

  • IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.FTP.DefaultCommandCharacterSet

  • IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.FTP.CommandCharacterSetIsUserCharacterSet

The following precedence model determines a session's FTP command character encoding:

  1. Explicitly specified (using quote setcommandcharacterset).

  2. If IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.FTP.CommandCharacterSetIsUser CharacterSet is true, use the Default Character Set specified by the user in Globalization Preferences.

  3. If IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.FTP.CommandCharacterSetIsUser CharacterSet is false, use the value of IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.FTP. DefaultCommandCharacterSet.

  4. If no character set is found, use the service wide default, IFS.SERVICE. DefaultCharacterSet.

The standard FTP protocol does not define the character set of the file names or directory names that are usually passed as arguments of FTP commands. The FTP server is responsible for interpreting the byte sequence of the FTP commands. To allow users to access documents of different character sets and languages, and to allow users to set and view the protocol command character set, the Oracle Content Services FTP server provides the following QUOTE commands:

  • Ftp> quote setcommandcharacterset: Allows users to specify the command character set for the FTP session. This character set specifies the character encoding to be used in subsequent FTP commands. The FTP protocol server converts FTP commands from this character encoding to Java String and vice versa. When the FTP session is first created, the FTP server uses the default character set of the session. The IANA naming standards should be used to specify the character set.

  • Ftp> quote setcharacterset: Allows users to specify the character set of the documents to be uploaded. Called setcharencoding in previous releases of Oracle Content Services. The IANA naming standards should be used to specify the character set.

  • Ftp> quote showcharacterset: Displays both the current command character set and the current document character set of the FTP session. Called showcharencoding in previous releases of Oracle Content Services. The character set is displayed in the IANA naming standards.

  • Ftp> quote setlanguage: Allows users to specify the language for the FTP session. The language of a FTP session is then associated with the documents that are uploaded. Oracle Text uses the language information to determine the appropriate lexer to use to index the document. When the FTP session is first created, the FTP server uses the default language of the session. Oracle language names should be used.

  • Ftp> quote showlanguage: Displays the current language of the FTP session. The language is displayed with the Oracle naming standard.

When a quote command is issued to change the character set or language of the FTP session, the FTP server actually updates the settings in the Localizer object of the current LibrarySession. Subsequently, since quote commands cannot be issued until a FTP session is established, only user names in the character set or subset of the FTP server's default character set can be used to log in to the FTP server. Appendix F, "FTP Quote Command Reference" for more information about quote commands.

Users can specify the character sets and languages of their environments using standard command-line FTP clients. Browser-based FTP clients, such as Internet Explorer or Netscape, do not allow issuance of quote commands. FtpSession defaults will be used.

WebDAV

Oracle Content Services provides the following server configuration properties to specify the default WebDAV command character set:

  • IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.DAV.Webfolders.DefaultCommandCharacterSet

  • IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.DAV.Webfolders.CommandCharacterSetIsUser CharacterSet

The following precedence model determines a session's WebDAV command character encoding:

  1. If IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.DAV.Webfolders.CommandCharacterSetIs UserCharacterSet is true, use the Default Character Set specified by the user in Globalization Preferences.

  2. If IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.DAV.Webfolders.CommandCharacterSetIs UserCharacterSet is false, use the value of IFS.SERVER.PROTOCOL.DAV. Webfolders.DefaultCommandCharacterSet.

  3. If no character set is found, use the service wide default, IFS.SERVICE. DefaultCharacterSet.

Character Sets Supported in Oracle Content Services

The following table summarizes the character sets supported in Oracle Content Services.

Table G-2 Character Sets Supported in Oracle Content Services

Language IANA Preferred MIME Charset IANA Additional Aliases Java Encodings Oracle Charset

Arabic (ISO)

iso-8859-6

ISO_8859-6:1987, iso-ir-127, ISO_8859-6, ECMA-114, ASMO-708, arabic, csISOLatinArabic

ISO8859_6

AR8ISO8859P6

Arabic (Windows)

windows-1256

none

Cp1256

AR8MSWIN1256

Baltic (ISO)

iso-8859-4

csISOLatin4, iso-ir-110, ISO_8859-4, ISO_8859-4:1988, l4, latin4

ISO8859_4

NEE8ISO8859P4

Baltic (Windows)

windows-1257

none

Cp1257

BLT8MSWIN1257

Central European (DOS)

ibm852

cp852, 852, csPcp852

Cp852

EE8PC852

Central European (ISO)

iso-8859-2

csISOLatin2, iso-ir-101, iso8859-2, iso_8859-2, iso_8859-2:1987, l2, latin2

ISO8859_2

EE8ISO8859P2

Central European (Windows)

windows-1250

x-cp1250

Cp1250

EE8MSWIN1250

Chinese

iso-2022-cn

It is not defined in IANA, but use in MIME documents.

csISO2022CN

ISO2022CN

ISO2022-CN

Chinese Simplified (GB2312)

gb2312

chinese, csGB2312, csISO58GB231280, GB2312, GB_2312-80, iso-ir-58

EUC_CN

ZHS16CGB231280

Chinese Simplified (GB18030)

GB18030

none

GB18030

ZHS32GB18030

Chinese Simplified (Windows)

GBK

windows-936

GBK

ZHS16GBK

Chinese Traditional

big5

csbig5, x-x-big5

Big5

ZHT16BIG5

Chinese Traditional

windows-950

none

MS950

ZHT16MSWIN950

Chinese Traditional (EUC-TW)

EUC-TW

none

EUC_TW

ZHT32EUC

Chinese Traditional (Big5-HKSCS)

Big5-HKSCS

none

Big5_HKSCS

ZHT16HKSCS

Cyrillic (DOS)

ibm866

cp866, 866, csIBM866

Cp866

RU8PC866

Cyrillic (ISO)

iso-8859-5

csISOLatinCyrillic, cyrillic, iso-ir-144, ISO_8859-5, ISO_8859-5:1988

ISO8859_5

CL8ISO8859P5

Cyrillic (KOI8-R)

koi8-r

csKOI8R, koi

KOI8_R

CL8KOI8R

Cyrillic Alphabet (Windows)

windows-1251

x-cp1251

Cp1251

CL8MSWIN1251

Greek (ISO)

iso-8859-7

csISOLatinGreek,  ECMA-118, ELOT_928, greek, greek8, iso-ir-126, ISO_8859-7, ISO_8859-7:1987, csISOLatinGreek

ISO8859_7

EL8ISO8859P7

Greek (Windows)

windows-1253

none

Cp1253

EL8MSWIN1253

Hebrew (ISO)

iso-8859-8

csISOLatinHebrew, hebrew, iso-ir-138, ISO_8859-8, visual, ISO-8859-8 Visual, ISO_8859-8:1988

ISO8859_8

IW8ISO8859P8

Hebrew (Windows)

windows-1255

none

Cp1255

IW8MSWIN1255

Japanese (JIS)

iso-2022-jp

csISO2022JP

ISO2022JP

ISO2022-JP

Japanese (EUC)

euc-jp

csEUCPkdFmtJapanese, Extended_UNIX_Code_Packed_Format_for_Japanese, x-euc, x-euc-jp

EUC_JP

JA16EUC

Japanese (Shift-JIS)

shift_jis

csShiftJIS, csWindows31J, ms_Kanji, shift-jis, x-ms-cp932, x-sjis

MS932

JA16SJIS

Korean

ks_c_5601-1987

csKSC56011987, korean, ks_c_5601, euc-kr, csEUCKR

EUC_KR

KO16KSC5601

Korean (ISO)

iso-2022-kr

csISO2022KR

ISO2022KR

ISO2022-KR

Korean (Windows)

windows-949

none

MS949

KO16MSWIN949

South European (ISO)

iso-8859-3

ISO_8859-3, ISO_8859-3:1988, iso-ir-109, latin3, l3, csISOLatin3

ISO8859_3

SE8ISO8859P3

Thai

TIS-620

windows-874

TIS620

TH8TISASCII

Turkish (Windows)

windows-1254

none

Cp1254

TR8MSWIN1254

Turkish (ISO)

iso-8859-9

latin5, l5, csISOLatin5, ISO_8859-9, iso-ir-148, ISO_8859-9:1989

ISO8859_9

WE8ISO8859P9

Universal (UTF-8)

utf-8

unicode-1-1-utf-8, unicode-2-0-utf-8, x-unicode-2-0-utf-8

UTF8

UTF8

Unicode (UTF-16BE)

UTF-16BE

none

UTF-16BE

AL16UTF16

Unicode (UTF-16LE)

UTF16LE

none

UTF-16LE

AL16UTF16LE

Vietnamese (Windows)

windows-1258

none

Cp1258

VN8MSWIN1258

Western Alphabet

iso-8859-1

cp819, ibm819, iso-ir-100, iso8859-1, iso_8859-1, iso_8859-1:1987, latin1, l1, csISOLatin1

ISO8859_1

WE8ISO8859P1

Western Alphabet (DOS)

ibm850

cp850, 850, csIBM850

Cp850

WE38PC850

Western Alphabet (Windows)

windows-1252

x-ansi

Cp1252

WE8MSWIN1252


Document Languages Supported in Oracle Content Services

The following table summarizes the document languages supported in Oracle Content Services. Note that the supported document languages are different from the languages supported in the Oracle Content Services application.

Table G-3 Document Languages Supported in Oracle Content Services

Oracle Language Name Java Locale ISO Locale

Arabic

ar

ar

Bengali

bn

bn

Brazilian Portuguese

pt_BR

pt-br

Bulgarian

bg

bg

Canadian French

fr_CA

fr-CA

Catalan

ca

ca

Croatian

hr

hr

Czech

cs

cs

Danish

da

da

Dutch

nl

nl

Egyptian

ar_EG

ar-eg

American

en

en

English

en_GB

en-gb

Estonian

et

et

Finnish

fi

fi

French

fr

fr

German

de

de

Greek

el

el

Hebrew

he

he

Hungarian

hu

hu

Icelandic

is

is

Indonesian

id

in

Italian

it

it

Japanese

ja

ja

Korean

ko

ko

Latin American Spanish

es

es

Latvian

lv

lv

Lithuanian

lt

lv

Malay

ms

ms

Mexican Spanish

es_MX

es-mx

Norwegian

no

no

Polish

pl

pl

Portuguese

pt

pt

Romanian

ro

ro

Russian

ru

ru

Simplified Chinese

zh_CN

zh-cn

Slovak

sk

sk

Slovenian

sl

sl

Spanish

es_ES

es-es

Swedish

sv

sv

Thai

th

th

Traditional Chinese

zh_TW

zh-tw

Turkish

tr

tr

Ukrainian

uk

uk

Vietnamese

vi

vi