8.3.1.Oracle 8 & 9
The Oracle 9i, 8i and 8.0 databases store Unicode data in the UTF8 encoding scheme, which is an ASCII compatible multibyte encoding for Unicode.
Database Confguration
Using the Oracle Database Configuration Assistant wizard follow the options for creating a new database, selecting the custom option when presented and you will during the configuration of this Custom database be allowed to Change the Character Set, at which point this can be changed to UTF8.
To check the character set in use by your database, execute the following query in SQL*Plus:
SQL> SELECT parameter, value FROM nls_database_parameters WHERE parameter = 'NLS_CHARACTERSET'; PARAMETER VALUE ------------------ --------------------- NLS_CHARACTERSET UTF8 SQL>.
Unicode support is dependent on the Unicode features available through the Oracle Call Interface (OCI). OCI 8.1.5 supports inputting Unicode data into a database and retrieving Unicode data from a database.
The Following Oracle Data types can be using for storing Unicode data:
CHAR VARCHAR VARCHAR2
Driver Configuration
The Oracle configuration parameter for control character sets is the NLS_LANG environment variable, which should be set to the correct character set for your client. Oracle 8.1.7 claims to be capable of dynamically determining the character set in use on the client and does not require the NLS_LANG to be set, but it is not a bad idea to set it anyway.
Additional information on Oracle Unicode support can be found from otn.oracle.com