Changing the character set, sort order, or message language

Even after you have configured your server, a system administrator can change the default character set, sort order, or message language used by SAP ASE.

Because a sort order is built on a specific character set, changing character sets always involves a change in sort order. However, you can change the sort order without changing character sets, because more than one sort order may be available for a character set.

Note: You cannot change the SAP ASE default character set and sort order if it includes an archived database.

To display SAP ASE’s default sort order, character set, and a table of its primary sort orders, enter:

sp_helpsort

Changing the default character set
SAP ASE can have only one default character set, in which data is stored in its databases. When you install SAP ASE, you specify a default character set.
Changing the sort order with a resources file
SAP ASE character sets can be changed using the resource file.
Change the Default Sort Order
SAP ASE can have only one default sort order, which is the collating sequence it uses to order data.
Reconfiguring the Character Set, Sort Order, or Message Language
Changing SAP ASE’s default character set, sort order, or message language involves extracting the data, installing the new character set, sort order, or message language, shutting down and restarting the server, and reloading the data. For procedures on how to configure the character set, sort order, or message language for a new server, see the configuration documentation for your platform.
Example: Converting a Unicode Database to UTF-8
A fictitious database named xpubs is modified to use univarchar columns.
Before Changing the Character Set or Sort Order
You must perform some preliminary steps before you change the character set or sort order.
Set the User’s Default Language
If you install an additional language, users running client programs can run create login to set that language as their default language, or set the LANG variable on the client machine, with the appropriate entries in locales.dat.
Manage Suspect Partitions
Partitions are marked suspect because of a sort order or character set change on a range-partitioned table, or because of a cross-platform dump and load with a hash-partitioned table.

Parent topic: Configuring Character Sets, Sort Orders, and Languages