Globalization Support

Oracle Internet Directory follows LDAP Version 3 internationalization (I18N) standards. These standards require that the database storing directory data use the UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format 8-bit) character set. (The Oracle character set name is AL32UTF8.) This allows Oracle Internet Directory to store the character data of almost any language supported by Oracle Globalization Support. Moreover, although several different application program interfaces (APIs) are involved in the Oracle Internet Directory implementation, Oracle Internet Directory ensures that the correct character encoding is used with each API.

Globalization Support means support for both single-byte and multibyte characters. A single-byte character is represented by one byte of memory. ASCII text, for example, uses single-byte characters. By contrast, a multibyte character can be represented by more than one byte. Simplified Chinese, for example, uses multibyte characters. An ASCII representation of a simplified Chinese directory entry definition might look like this:

dn: o=\274\327\271\307\316\304,c=\303\300\271\372
objectclass: top
objectclass: organization
o: \274\327\271\307\316\304

Where the attribute values correspond to an ASCII representation of a simplified Chinese directory entry definition.

By default, the main Oracle Internet Directory components--OID Monitor (OIDMON), OID Control Utility (OIDCTL), Oracle directory server (OIDLDAPD), Oracle directory replication server (OIDREPLD), and Oracle directory integration and provisioning server (ODISRV)--accept only the UTF-8 character set. The Oracle character set name is AL32UTF8.

The Oracle directory server and database tools are no longer restricted to run on a UTF8 database. However, be sure that all characters in the client character set are included in the database character set (with same or different character codes) if the database underlying the Oracle Internet Directory server is not AL32UTF8 or UTF8. Otherwise, there may be data loss during LDAP add, delete, modify, or modifydn operations if the client data cannot be mapped to the database character set.

Oracle Directory Manager, a Java-based tool, internally uses Unicode (UTF-16--that is, fixed-width 16-bit Unicode). It can support internationalized character sets.

See Also: "Oracle Internet Directory Architecture" for information on the main Oracle Internet Directory components Appendix G, "Globalization Support in the Directory" for instructions on using Globalization Support in Oracle Internet Directory Oracle9i Database Globalization Support Guide in the Oracle Database Documentation Library for a detailed discussion of Globalization Support