I know at some point one has to byte the bullet and upgrade.
But we have many people on 9.7 and upgrading them to 10.1.1.8 may also
requite=re upgrading their machines from 1 to 2 or Gb. I did some testing with
9.7 and noticed that if I changed my display font I can see accented characters
fine with 9.7 on a UTF-8 database.
So my supervisor wants to know exactly what danger is there in a developer
running Toad 9.7 on a UTF-8 database.
The danger is data corruption. It just doesn’t support Unicode. I use
Chinese here to make the example dramatic, but depending on the code sets used,
it could be a lot more subtle, such as the Euro.
At the very minimum, if you are on UTF-8, you must make sure your local
client’s NLS_LANG value precisely matches your client character set. This
has nothing to do with which database character set you have.
Question marks typically represent corrupted data. It’s a question because
there is a byte code missing and the system doesn’t know how to construct
the character.
9.7:
10.0:
The danger is data corruption. It just doesn’t support Unicode. I use
Chinese here to make the example dramatic, but depending on the code sets used,
it could be a lot more subtle, such as the Euro.
At the very minimum, if you are on UTF-8, you must make sure your local
client’s NLS_LANG value precisely matches your client character set. This
has nothing to do with which database character set you have.
Question marks typically represent corrupted data. It’s a question because
there is a byte code missing and the system doesn’t know how to construct
the character.
9.7:
10.0:
The danger is data corruption. It just doesn’t support Unicode. I use
Chinese here to make the example dramatic, but depending on the code sets used,
it could be a lot more subtle, such as the Euro.
At the very minimum, if you are on UTF-8, you must make sure your local
client’s NLS_LANG value precisely matches your client character set. This
has nothing to do with which database character set you have.
Question marks typically represent corrupted data. It’s a question because
there is a byte code missing and the system doesn’t know how to construct
the character.
9.7:
10.0:
not a problem for francais or english
C0-C1 and F5-FF are disallowed in UTF-8
once you shift up to UTF-16 ALL codepage implementations use 16bits for every
character (instead of the standard 8bits)
notice the heavier byte-usage languages such as Hindi or arabic use 3 bytes+ in
UTF-8
Martin Gainty
Note de déni et de confidentialité
Ce message est confidentiel et peut être privilégié. Si vous n’êtes pas le destinataire prévu, nous te demandons avec bonté que pour satisfaire informez l’expéditeur. N’importe quelle diffusion non autorisée ou la copie de ceci est interdite. Ce message sert à l’information seulement et n’aura pas n’importe quel effet légalement obligatoire. Étant donné que les email peuvent facilement être sujets à la manipulation, nous ne pouvons accepter aucune responsabilité pour le contenu fourni.
Jumping in late on this, but the traffic on the Toad lists has been very
high this past week!
Multibyte will byte you when you least expect. I used Toad v9 on our
AL16UTF16 DB in a strictly read-only capacity and never had much of an
issue. The caveat is that I still hit unknown characters in an English-only
database. How? The evil copy-and-paste. A user copied text into the
web-based DB app from an MS Word doc that had the dreaded AutoCorrect option
replace ASCII-7 characters with multibyte ones.
If anything, multibyte Toad saves me from having to DUMP out column values
to see their raw multibyte values.
My $.02,
Rich -- [TeamT]
Disclaimer: The Winter Olympics should've been in Tennessee -- more snow.
not a problem for francais or english
C0-C1 and F5-FF are disallowed in UTF-8
once you shift up to UTF-16 ALL codepage implementations use 16bits for
every character (instead of the standard 8bits)
notice the heavier byte-usage languages such as Hindi or arabic use 3 bytes+
in UTF-8UTF-8 - Wikipedia
Martin Gainty
Morning Rich,
How? The evil copy-and-paste. A user copied text into the
web-based DB app from an MS Word doc that had the dreaded
AutoCorrect option replace ASCII-7 characters with multibyte ones.
WARNING: eRant ahead ...
Oh how I loathe Microsoft's "default" options on just about everything!
On emails, they default to html and cause ease of passage for virus
payloads, but far far worse than that, in Word, the default is smart
quotes.
Has anyone got any idea what is so "smart" about them? The look awful -
in any font - and, as Rich and I have found, when users paste text into
an application, it messes things up big time.
I've lost count of the number of times an application has had to be
patched to scan for and remove those so called "smart" quotes. They are
not smart in the slightest - but you can tell that, because Microsoft
have chosen them as the default.
And, try turning them off - it's not just in one place you have to do
it!
Sorry, but some things in life make me so angry!
Cheers,
Norm. [TeamT]
Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else. We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should still check any attachment before opening it. We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the sender or recipient, for business purposes. If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506. Find out more about the Environment Agency at www.environment-agency.gov.uk
Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else.
We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should still check any attachment before opening it.
We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the sender or recipient, for business purposes.
If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506. Find out more about the Environment Agency at www.environment-agency.gov.uk
Norm!
Sorry, but some things in life make me so angry!
Here, here! The bane of my existence at the moment is Oracle Grid Control.
Thanks for the rant!
Rich -- [TeamT]
Disclaimer: Bobsledding isn't the same without Jamaica.
Hi Rich,
Here, here! The bane of my existence at the moment is Oracle
Grid Control.
I noticed - over on Oracle-L.
Thanks for the rant!
Welcome. If ranting was san Olympic sport, I'd be in with a chance!
Disclaimer: Bobsledding isn't the same without Jamaica.
For once in my life, I've been able to figure out one of your
disclaimers!
Cheers,
Norm. [TeamT]
Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else. We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should still check any attachment before opening it. We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the sender or recipient, for business purposes. If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506. Find out more about the Environment Agency at www.environment-agency.gov.uk
Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else.
We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should still check any attachment before opening it.
We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the sender or recipient, for business purposes.
If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506. Find out more about the Environment Agency at www.environment-agency.gov.uk
I agree that they’re nasty in data files.
Seems to me we need to come up with better ways to deal with them, rather than
get rid of them. It was the typewriter that took them away from us. They had
otherwise been in common use for decades (centuries?) Pull a pre-computer days
book off your shelf and have a look. Now that word processors offer them again,
I don’t think it’s fair to expect people not to use them.
As for looking awful, I disagree. Same as I like my wife having curves, I prefer
the curved quotes over the bean poles that ASCII and typewriters offer. And they
distinguish between open and close quotes.
Well, back to the salt mines,
Dan
Daniel B Madvig
Computer Technologies
Northwestern College & Northwestern Media
3003 Snelling Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55113
www.nwc.edu
651.631.5323
Hi Dan,
I agree that they're nasty in data files.
Plus, they look awful?
Seems to me we need to come up with better ways to deal with
them, rather than get rid of them.
I disagree. They have no right to life and should be exterminated
immediately!
It was the typewriter
that took them away from us. They had otherwise been in
common use for decades (centuries?)
Well, I'm only almost nearly 50 (roll on April!) and I've been reading
books almost all my life (I love books!) and I have to admit that the
proper ones - they looked like a dot with a tail as opposed to a
straight slightly plump at the top style. However, I much prefer the
"modern" ones for aesthetic reasons - they appear much closer to the
text that they surround.
I always thought that there was too much white space between the smart
quotes and the text. I still do.
Pull a pre-computer days
book off your shelf and have a look. Now that word
processors offer them again, I don't think it's fair to
expect people not to use them.
Just because you can use them, doesn't mean that they have to be the
default. That was my point. We have all become used to the modern style
of the quotes and we are used to working with the, They have a standard
ASCII code as well. Microsoft have deemed that we must use what they
have decided upon - how many people do you know who know about changing
defaults? The number of emails I get in rtf/html format is ridiculous
and a quick View Source shows how much dross is used up to show a two
line email.
(I have a limit to the size of my inbox and these HTML emails destroy
that limit amazingly quickly.)
If these smart quotes are so great, how come nothing else can cope with
the? That puts Word in the minority (don't quote me but Open Office
might have a similar problem although I don't think it does) and
minority options really shouldn't be a default. Unless you are Microsoft
of course.
As for looking awful, I disagree. Same as I like my wife
having curves,
I agree. (I mean my wife of course!)
I prefer the curved quotes over the bean
poles that ASCII and typewriters offer. And they distinguish
between open and close quotes.
I admit that they do indeed distinguish between open and close quotes,
but I have no idea as to whether that is necessary? If I'm reading some
text, I will have seen an open quote followed by a close quote and will
know which is which.
Another thing I hate about Word - we upgraded a while back from 97 to
2003 (we keep up with the latest version us!) and hyperlinks that we
used to click on are now set up so that we have to CTRL+click to follow
a hyperlink. Again Word is a minority on this - all my PDFs just require
a single click - it's really irritating.
Thankfully, Toad lets me click in the SB to go to the right place in my
code. None of that CTRL+Click nonsense!
And if that wasn't a pathetic effort to keep the subject even remotely
Toad oriented, then I don't know what is!
Cheers,
Norm. [TeamT]
Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else. We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should still check any attachment before opening it. We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the sender or recipient, for business purposes. If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506. Find out more about the Environment Agency at www.environment-agency.gov.uk
Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else.
We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should still check any attachment before opening it.
We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the sender or recipient, for business purposes.
If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506. Find out more about the Environment Agency at www.environment-agency.gov.uk
