DatabaseCharacterSet

Note:

You are required to specify the database character set at database creation time only. It cannot be altered after the database has been created. If you do not specify a value for this attribute when creating a database, TimesTen returns error message 12701.

Generally, your database character set should be chosen based on the data requirements. For example: Do you have data in Unicode or is your data in Japanese on UNIX and Linux systems (EUC) or Windows (SJIS)?

You should choose a connection character set that matches your terminal settings or data source. See ConnectionCharacterSet.

When the database and connection character sets differ, TimesTen performs the data conversion internally based on the connection character set. If the connection and database character sets are the same, TimesTen does not need to convert or interpret the data set. Best performance occurs when connection and database character sets match, since no conversion is required.

To use this attribute you must specify a supported character set. For a list of supported character set names, see Supported Character Sets below.

There are several things to consider when choosing a character set for your database. For a discussion about these considerations, see Choosing a Database Character Set in Oracle TimesTen In-Memory Database Operations Guide.

Required Privilege

Only the instance administrator can change the value of this attribute.

Usage in TimesTen Scaleout and TimesTen Classic

This attribute is supported in both TimesTen Classic and TimesTen Scaleout.

Setting

Set DatabaseCharacterSet name as follows:

Where to set the attribute	How the attribute is represented	Setting
C or Java programs or UNIX and Linux systems `odbc.ini` file in TimesTen Classic or in the database definition (`.dbdef`) file in TimesTen Scaleout	`DatabaseCharacterSet`	Specify the preferred character set.
Windows ODBC Data Source Administrator	Not applicable

Supported Character Sets

The following tables describe the character sets supported in TimesTen.

Asian Character Sets

Name	Description
`JA16EUC`	`EUC` 24-bit Japanese
`JA16EUCTILDE`	The same as `JA16EUC` except for the way that the wave dash and the tilde are mapped to and from Unicode
`JA16SJIS`	`Shift-JIS` 16-bit Japanese
`JA16SJISTILDE`	The same as `JA16SJIS` except for the way that the wave dash and the tilde are mapped to and from Unicode
`KO16KSC5601`	`KSC5601` 16-bit Korean
`KO16MSWIN949`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 949 Korean
`TH8TISASCII`	Thai Industrial Standard 620-2533 - ASCII 8-bit
`VN8MSWIN1258`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1258 8-bit Vietnamese
`ZHS16CGB231280`	`CGB2312-80` 16-bit Simplified Chinese
`ZHS16GBK`	`GBK` 16-bit Simplified Chinese
`ZHS32GB18030`	`GB18030-2000`
`ZHT16BIG5`	`BIG5` 16-bit Traditional Chinese
`ZHT16HKSCS`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 950 with Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set `HKSCS-2001`. Character set conversion to and from Unicode is based on Unicode 3.0.
`ZHT16MSWIN950`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 950 Traditional Chinese

European Character Sets

Name	Description
`BLT8CP921`	Latvian Standard `LVS8-92(`1) Windows/UNIX/Linux 8-bit Baltic
`BLT8ISO8859P13`	ISO 8859-13 Baltic
`BLT8MSWIN1257`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1257 8-bit Baltic
`BLT8PC775`	IBM-PC Code Page 775 8-bit Baltic
`CEL8ISO8859P14`	ISO 8859-13 Celtic
`CL8ISO8859P5`	ISO 8859-5 Latin/Cyrillic
`CL8KOI8R`	RELCOM Internet Standard 8-bit Latin/Cyrillic
`CL8KOI8U`	KOI8 Ukrainian Cyrillic
`CL8MSWIN1251`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1251 8-bit Latin/Cyrillic
`EE8ISO8859P2`	ISO 8859-2 East European
`EL8ISO8859P7`	ISO 8859-7 Latin/Greek
`ET8MSWIN923`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 923 8-bit Estonian
`EE8MSWIN1250`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1250 8-bit East European
`EL8MSWIN1253`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1253 8-bit Latin/Greek
`EL8PC737`	IBM-PC Code Page 737 8-bit Greek/Latin
`EE8PC852`	IBM-PC Code Page 852 8-bit East European
`LT8MSWIN921`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 921 8-bit Lithuanian
`NE8ISO8859P10`	ISO 8859-10 North European
`NEE8ISO8859P4`	ISO 8859-4 North and North-East European
`RU8PC866`	IBM-PC Code Page 866 8-bit Latin/Cyrillic
`SE8ISO8859P3`	ISO 8859-3 South European
`US7ASCII`	ASCII 7-bit American
`US8PC437`	IBM-PC Code Page 437 8-bit American
`WE8ISO8859P1`	ISO 8859-1 West European
`WE8ISO8859P15`	ISO 8859-15 West European
`WE8MSWIN1252`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1252 8-bit West European
`WE8PC850`	IBM-PC Code Page 850 8-bit West European
`WE8PC858`	IBM-PC Code Page 858 8-bit West European

Middle Eastern Character Sets

Name	Description
`AR8ADOS720`	Arabic MS-DOS 720 Server 8-bit Latin/Arabic
`AR8ASMO8X`	ASMO Extended 708 8-bit Latin/Arabic
`AR8ISO8859P6`	ISO 8859-6 Latin/Arabic
`AR8MSWIN1256`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1256 8-Bit Latin/Arabic
`AZ8ISO8859P9E`	ISO 8859-9 Latin Azerbaijani
`IW8ISO8859P8`	ISO 8859-8 Latin/Hebrew
`IW8MSWIN1255`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1255 8-bit Latin/Hebrew
`TR8MSWIN1254`	Microsoft Windows Code Page 1254 8-bit Turkish
`TR8PC857`	IBM-PC Code Page 857 8-bit Turkish
`WE8ISO8859P9`	ISO 8859-9 West European & Turkish

Universal Character Sets

Name Description

Name	Description
`AL16UTF16`	Unicode 4.0 UTF-16 Universal character set. This is the implicit TimesTen national character set. This character set cannot be specified as a value to the DatabaseCharacterSet or ConnectionCharacterSet attributes.
`AL32UTF8`	Unicode 4.0 UTF-8 Universal character set
`UTF8`	Unicode 3.0 UTF-8 Universal character set, CESU-8 compliant

AL16UTF16

Unicode 4.0 UTF-16 Universal character set. This is the implicit TimesTen national character set.

This character set cannot be specified as a value to the DatabaseCharacterSet or ConnectionCharacterSet attributes.

AL32UTF8

Unicode 4.0 UTF-8 Universal character set

UTF8

Unicode 3.0 UTF-8 Universal character set, CESU-8 compliant