Usage Notes - Teradata Vantage - Analytics Database

SQL Data Types and Literals

Deployment
VantageCloud
VantageCore
Edition
VMware
Enterprise
IntelliFlex
Product
Analytics Database
Teradata Vantage
Release Number
17.20
Published
June 2022
ft:locale
en-US
ft:lastEdition
2025-11-06
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lifecycle
latest
Product Category
Teradata Vantage™

Using CHARACTER SET to Define Internal Storage of a Column

To define the server character set for a character column, use the CHARACTER SET phrase of a character column definition in the CREATE TABLE statement.

This optional phrase defines the internal handling of character data stored on the server and has nothing to do with the client, or session, character set.

If you omit the CHARACTER SET clause, then the default server character set for the column depends on how the user accessing the data in the table is defined in the DEFAULT CHARACTER SET clause of the CREATE USER statement. For more information, see Teradata Vantage™ - SQL Data Definition Language Syntax and Examples, B035-1144. If there is no default character set specified for the user, the system defaults to the character set associated with the language mode, that is, LATIN for standard language mode and UNICODE for Japanese language mode.

Supported Server Character Sets for CHARACTER SET

Teradata SQL supports five server character sets for use with CHARACTER SET. The following topics discuss each server character set in detail:

Restrictions

You cannot use the CHARACTER SET phrase for a UDT column.

Using the CHARACTER SET Phrase for Translation

The CHARACTER SET phrase is a form of explicit translation. If the CHARACTER SET phrase is applied to a character expression, the expression is first translated using the implicit translation rules.

For information on explicit translation of CHARACTER data, see Data Type Conversions.

If the CHARACTER SET phrase is applied to a character expression, the expression is first translated using the implicit translation rules and then truncated as appropriate.

FOR this server_character_set THE n in CHAR(n) or VARCHAR(n) indicates the number of these in the translation result …
  • UNICODE
  • LATIN
  • GRAPHIC
characters
  • KANJISJIS
  • KANJI1
bytes