topic Re: character encoding problem in Data Management Questions

character encoding problem

KoenVermeer — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:35:55 GMT

How do I change te character encoding in sde?
For our project the data should comply to Latin-1, but all characters outside of ascii aren't displayed in ArcGIS.

-When I'm adding data through ArcMap, characters like 'ë' aren't saved correctly in the database.
-When I update data directly through Oracle the characters are saved correctly in the database, but are displayed wrong in ArcGIS (as '?')

Any idea what the problem is and how I can fix it?

My setup:
Oracle9i
ArcSDE 9.0
ArcGIS Desktop 9.2

Re: character encoding problem

VinceAngelo — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:55:56 GMT

ArcSDE doesn't have character encoding -- only the databases do. Oracle's encoding
rule is defined by the NLS_LANG envronment variable. If you don't specify one in the
environment or dbinit.sde, the application server will use the default of US7ASCII.

You're using an archaic software stack -- It's been years since ArcSDE 9.0 or Oracle 9i
was last supported, and even ArcGIS 9.2 is in Retired support status. You probably
want to search postings over in forums.esri.com for NLS_LANG issues.

- V

Re: character encoding problem

KoenVermeer — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 05:45:23 GMT

Thanks for your reply

One correction to my previous post, we're using ArcGIS 9.3.1, not 9.2
But we do use ArcSDE 9.0, I know this is ancient, but our client isn't ready to upgrade. Could that be a cause for the problem?

The NLS_CHARACTERSET of oracle is WE8MSWIN1252. That should contain those characters right?

Re: character encoding problem

KoenVermeer — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 06:28:15 GMT

Found the solution:

If you are using a pre-9.2 server or client and must set the NLS_LANG variable, for Windows, you must register the NLS_LANG variable before the ArcSDE server is started.

sdeservice -o register -r NLS_LANG -v <value> -p <DB_Admin_password> [-i <service>]

http://webhelp.esri.com/arcgisdesktop/9.2/index.cfm?TopicName=Language_support_in_the_geodatabase&anchor=nlsss