System Default Character Support - Teradata Database

International Character Set Support

Product
Teradata Database
Release Number
15.10
Language
English (United States)
Last Update
2018-09-25
dita:id
B035-1125
lifecycle
previous
Product Category
Teradata® Database

Certain character set options are enabled by default during initial system setup.

Teradata clients must use a character set for which translation codes are enabled on the Teradata Database system. The translation codes convert client character data to the applicable default server character set.

Upon installation of Teradata client software, translation codes for the following client character sets are automatically and permanently enabled:

  • ASCII. See “ASCII Client Character Set Support” on page 25.
  • EBCDIC. See “EBCDIC Client Character Set Support” on page 26.
  • UTF8. See “UTF8 Client Character Set Support” on page 27.
  • UTF16. See “UTF16 Client Character Set Support” on page 28.
  • Note: Depending on the client character set you choose, some configuration may be required. See Chapter 3: “Using Standard Teradata Client Character Sets.”

    Each Teradata Database system is configured for a language support mode as part of sysinit:

  • Standard (For details, see “Standard Language Support Mode” on page 16.)
  • Japanese (For details, see “Japanese Language Support Mode” on page 17.)
  • The language support mode determines the default server character set, which in turn determines which character set is used to store data.

     

    IF you enable this language support mode …

    Teradata Database stores object names using …

    and the user default server character set is…

    Standard

    UNICODE

    LATIN

    Japanese

    UNICODE

    UNICODE

    The default server character set also determines which client character sets are supported. “Client Character Set Compatibility with Server Character Sets” on page 23.

    You can override the global default server character set associated with the language mode by specifying a default server character set for specific users or table columns.

    For details about server character set options, see Chapter 4: “Server Character Sets.”

    Enabling the Language Support Mode

    During the sysinit process, at the following prompt appears:

       Enable Japanese language support?

    To optimize the database for Japanese language support, answer YES. Otherwise, answer NO.

    If you answer NO, the Teradata Database uses standard language support.

    Determining the Current Language Support Mode

    To determine the current language support mode on your system, enter this command:

       SELECT * FROM dbc.dbcinfoV WHERE infokey = 'LANGUAGE SUPPORT MODE';

    For Japanese systems, the system returns:

       *** Query completed. One row found. One column returned. 
    *** Total elapsed time was 1 second.
     
       InfoData
       --------------------------------------
       Japanese

    For Non-Japanese systems, the system returns:

       *** Query completed. One row found. One column returned. 
    *** Total elapsed time was 1 second.
     
       InfoData
       --------------------------------------
       Standard

    If you enable standard language support, then by default Teradata Database stores:

  • Object names in the Data Dictionary using the UNICODE server character set
  • User data in Teradata Database tables using the LATIN server character set.
  • Note: You can override the global data storage default by specifying a different default character set for individual users and table columns. See “Specifying the Default Server Character Set” on page 62.

    For the standard language support mode, the default server character set for user DBC is also LATIN.

    About Standard Language LATIN Character Coding

    Standard language support provides Teradata Database internal coding for the entire set of printable characters from the ISO 8859-1 (Latin1) and ISO 8859-15 (Latin9) standard, including diacritical marks such as ä, ñ, Ÿ, Œ, and œ, though the Z with caron in Latin9 is not supported. ASCII control characters are also supported for the standard language set.

    For a definition of the Teradata LATIN character set used to represent ASCII and EBCDIC characters, see “LATIN Server Character Set” on page 62.

    Compatible Languages

    The LATIN server character set used in standard language support mode is sufficient to support the following languages.

     

    International Languages That are Compatible with Standard Language Support

    Albanian

    English

    Germanic

    Portuguese

    Basque

    Estonian

    Greenlandic

    Rhaeto-Romantic

    Breton

    Faroese

    Icelandic

    Romance

    Catalonian

    Finnish

    Irish Gaelic
    (new orthography)

    Samoan

    Celtic

    French

    Italian

    Scottish Gaelic

    Cornish

    Frisian

    Latin

    Spanish

    Danish

    Galician

    Luxemburgish

    Swahili

    Dutch

    German

    Norwegian

    Swedish

    Note: For support of languages not shown in the preceding table, the server character set should be set either:

  • System-wide, to Japanese Language Support Mode (for Japanese clients only)
  • To UNICODE for the default character set for users or table columns that require the special language support. See “Specifying the Default Server Character Set” on page 62.
  • If you enable Japanese language support, by default Teradata Database stores:

  • Object names in the Data Dictionary using the UNICODE server character set
  • User data in Teradata Database tables using the UNICODE server character set.
  • In Japanese Language Mode, the default server character set for user DBC is UNICODE.

    Note: The default server character set from user DBC (UNICODE) is inherited when the Teradata SQL DATABASE statement is used to change the default database.

    About Using UNICODE to Store User Data

    Unicode is a 16-bit encoding of virtually all characters in all current international languages. User data stored as Unicode can be easily shared among clients that use diverse character sets.

    For more information about Teradata support for UNICODE, see “UNICODE Server Character Set” on page 64.