Set charset to UTF-8 in SQL*Plus

Question

I have a SQL script that contains the following statement:

insert into employee(fname,lname) values('Jörg','Müller');

My Database Charset ist set to AL32UTF8 but when I execute the script in SQLPlus the german letters Ö and Ü are not saved correctly. How can I set the Charset of SQLPlus to UTF-8?

Is it possible to set the SQL*Plus Charset to UTF-8 in my script file (the sql script file contains the command to set the charset to UTF-8)?

My runtime environment is Window but script should also be able to run on unix. My oracle version is 19c.

if you're using say, Windows terminal CMD prompt, you need to make sure windows encoding is ALSO set to Unicode - please describe your runtime environment and also version of Oracle — thatjeffsmith, May 11 '22 at 17:46

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered May 11 '22 at 20:53

SQL*Plus inherits the character set from cmd window. You need to set encoding to UTF-8 and tell it Oracle. This is done by NLS_LANG parameter.

Try this:

chcp 65001
set NLS_LANG=.AL32UTF8
sqlplus ....

Of course, this works only if your sql-file is also saved as UTF-8. Otherwise you need to adapt character sets from above.

See OdbcConnection returning Chinese Characters as "?"

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered May 11 '22 at 20:05

-1

You would typically use the environment variable NLS_LANG and for example set it like this in windows: SET NLS_LANG=AMERICAN_AMERICA.AL32UTF8

answered May 11 '22 at 20:05

doberkofler

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Setting only `NLS_LANG` does not have any effect for SQLplus – Wernfried Domscheit May 12 '22 at 04:35
In your question you explicitly wrote that you want utf8 encoding, but is your source file utf8 encoded? Generally speaking the encoding of your source file encoding must match the nls_lang encoding. – doberkofler May 12 '22 at 09:21
Correct, as long as you run only an existing SQL-File and don't run any manual `INSERT` command, the terminal codepage does not matter. – Wernfried Domscheit May 12 '22 at 09:32

Set charset to UTF-8 in SQL*Plus

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