[bpereira]

Hi,

I am trying to load a few CSV files into Oracle using the sqlldr - The files are encoded using ISO-8859-1 - The database character set is also set to Western European ISO-8859-1, However, once imported some of the characters appear as inverted question marks - the characters are the plus minus character and the super script 2 - Both these character are supported by the ISO-8859-1 - Any idea why this is happening and what's the workaround? - Also the same imported on a Windows machine using UTF-8 as the characterset works fine

Regards

[LKBrwn_DBA]

Set the NLS_LANG environment variable to correct encoding.

[bpereira]

Hi,

I have the NLS_LANG set to AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8ISO8859P1 - Should it be set to something else??

Regards

[LKBrwn_DBA]

It also has to be set when you run the utility to LOOK at the data which may have loaded OK.

[bpereira]

If you are referring to the .ctl file then yes i have tried that too - I ran a dump to determine what the database is actually storing and it seemed that it was storing ASCII codes - meaning that the loader must be interpreting the datafile as being ASCII characters - I added the characterset argument to the Load Data statement as US7ASCII hoping that the Loader would convert the codes to ISO 8859-1 (since the database characterset is set to that) - but had no luck

Thanks

[anacedent]

It would be MUCH more helpful & useful if you simply used CUT & PASTE (along with <code tags>) to actually show us exactly what you are doing & the complete output response.

We don't know Operating System name or version.
We don't know Oracle version (to 4 decimal places).

See what you are telling us everything should be OK & working.
The fact you are having a problem means, IMO, means you are mis-stating reality, but since we can't see what you are really doing & what you are actually seeing; we can't really provide any solution.

>I added the characterset argument to the Load Data statement as US7ASCII
Part of me suspects this is not what should have been done.
In 7-bit ASCII there is NO support any character value greater than 127; CHR(127)
>- the characters are the plus minus character and the super script 2 - Both these character are supported by the ISO-8859-1
but neither are supported in 7-bit ASCII (aka US7ASCII)

Please read & FOLLOW posting guidelines found below:
Guidance and resources for posters

[bpereira]

This is the environment information:

Oracle9i Enterprise Edition Release 9.2.0.4.0 on a Linux kernel version 2.6 (Fedora Core 3)

And this is the NLS_Lang and database character settings:

SQL> HOST echo $NLS_LANG;
AMERICAN_AMERICA.WE8ISO8859P1

SQL> SELECT * from NLS_DATABASE_PARAMETERS;

PARAMETER VALUE
------------------------------ ----------------------------------------
NLS_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_TERRITORY AMERICA
NLS_CURRENCY $
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY AMERICA
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS .,
NLS_CHARACTERSET WE8ISO8859P1
NLS_CALENDAR GREGORIAN
NLS_DATE_FORMAT DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE AMERICAN
NLS_SORT BINARY
NLS_TIME_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM

PARAMETER VALUE
------------------------------ ----------------------------------------
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY $
NLS_COMP BINARY
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP FALSE
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET AL16UTF16
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION 9.2.0.4.0

20 rows selected.

Table Information:

SQL> desc productdescriptions;
Name Null? Type
----------------------------------------- -------- ----------------------------
PRODUCTID NOT NULL NUMBER
DESCRIPTION VARCHAR2(500)
ISDEFAULT NOT NULL NUMBER(1)
TYPE NOT NULL NUMBER
LOCALEID NOT NULL NUMBER


What i am trying to do is load a CSV file in the above table using the SQL loader - the CSV file contains the character ± which once loaded shows up as ¿

Thanks..

[bpereira]

Hi,

I have figured out the issue - It was due to the fact that the NLS_LANG was not set correctly - Setting it correctly before the run did the trick - thanks for all the help

[PMASchmed]

I find metalink.oracle.com to be extremely helpful.

[anacedent]

>I find metalink.oracle.com to be extremely helpful.
Please refrain form posting this truism against every thread just because it would be true.

I find the manuals located at http://tahiti.oracle.com to be extremely helpful.