You might require character set conversion between the client and a terminal, and between the client and a file system.
This figure illustrates the paths and command line options that are available in the standalone utilities isql, bcp, and defncopy:
Use:
- -J or /clientcharset command line option to specify the character set used by the client when it sends and receives character data to and from SAP ASE.
- -a command line option if you are running the client from a terminal with a character set that differs from the client character set. In the figure above, the -a option and the -J option are used together to identify the character set translation file (.xlt file) needed for the conversion.
- -a without the -J parameter only if the client character set is the same as the default character set.
- -q command line option if you are running bcp to copy character data to or from a file system that uses a character set that differs from the client character set. In the figure above, use the -q or/filecharset option and the -J or /clientcharset option together to identify the character set translation file (.xlt file) needed for the conversion.