Question

unicode characters in sql update/insert queries become question marks (ms sql server)

Asked by: Paulio

Hi there!
I have the problem described here:
  http://www.macromedia.com/cfusion/knowledgebase/index.cfm?id=tn_18331
When I for example want to insert the string 'This present costs € 12,00', the euro symbol will become a question mark while inserting the text.

So why ask a question?
I do not want to change about 300 queries only because of this one thing (I'm migrating from ms access).
Also, I never asked the database to treat the inserted text as unicode...

The question is: how can I do an update/insert query into ms sql server without having to specify the 'N' character before any string, as described in the technote?

THIS IS WHAT I WANT:
<cfquery name="upd_par" datasource="#variables.dbs#">
  update paragraphs
  set parbody = '#form.parbody#'
  where parid = 975;
</cfquery>

INSTEAD OF (third line, an N before the inserted string):
<cfquery name="upd_par" datasource="#variables.dbs#">
  update paragraphs
  set parbody = N'#form.parbody#'
  where parid = 975;
</cfquery>

Any comments or ideas are more then welcome!
This problem is keeping me from publishing my website!

ps. the behavior is still the same in Blackstone.

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Asked On
2004-12-28 at 02:34:22ID21255166
Tags

unicode

,

cfquery

,

euro

,

sql

Topic

ColdFusion Application Server

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: pinaldavePosted on 2004-12-28 at 08:40:42ID: 12913221

Hi Paulio,

Traditional non-Unicode data types in Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 allow the use of characters that are defined by a particular character set. A character set is chosen during SQL Server Setup and cannot be changed. Using Unicode data types, a column can store any character defined by the Unicode Standard, which includes all of the characters defined in the various character sets. Unicode data types take twice as much storage space as non-Unicode data types.

Unicode data is stored using the nchar, nvarchar, and ntext data types in SQL Server. Use these data types for columns that store characters from more than one character set. Use nvarchar when a column's entries vary in the number of Unicode characters (up to 4,000) they contain. Use nchar when every entry for a column has the same fixed length (up to 4,000 Unicode characters). Use ntext when any entry for a column is longer than 4,000 Unicode characters.

Note  The SQL Server Unicode data types are based on the National Character data types in the SQL-92 standard. SQL-92 uses the prefix character n to identify these data types and values.

Also

Please refer : http://databasejournal.com/features/mssql/article.php/1442341#part_10

Regards,
---Pinal

 

by: PaulioPosted on 2004-12-28 at 11:17:43ID: 12914306

OK, now I understand the difference between ntext/nchar/nvarchar and text/char/varchar, and some details surrounding it that I did not know about.
But still, I can not find a solution for my problem.

After your writing, I changed the column 'parbody' (see example above) to 'text' instead of 'ntext'.
But the euro symbol is still converted to a question mark by sql server.

The database properties indicate that the 'Collation name' is 'Latin1_General_CI_AS'.
Actually, I don't know exactly what that is, other then that the page encoding for my web pages is iso-8859-1, which is also called 'Latin1'.

Any ideas?
All I want to do is put some text, encoded as iso-8859-1, in a sql server database, with coldfusion. (without having to write a 'N' before every string).

 

by: MausePosted on 2004-12-28 at 23:48:43ID: 12917241

try this

Open administrtor-datasources-yourdatasource and put this in the connection string

useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=ISO8859_15

hope this helps
Mause

 

by: PaulioPosted on 2004-12-29 at 02:24:50ID: 12917754

Thanks for your reply.
But unfortunately, it didn't work.
I tried all kinds of combinations with the connection string (useUnicode=true/false, characterEncoding=ISO8859_1/15) and field settings for the table (text / ntext), but all resulted in the same misery: the euro sign(s) converted into a question mark.

Was the '5' at the end of the connection string you suggested a typo? I tried it both with and without, so it doesn't really matter, but anyway...

Anybody?

 

by: MausePosted on 2004-12-29 at 03:16:06ID: 12917929

No the '5' was not a typo!
I also had a problem using the euro sign and a ? but the
useUnicode=true/false, characterEncoding=ISO8859_15 solved my problem when inserting a euro sign

 

by: PaulioPosted on 2005-01-03 at 01:38:06ID: 12942383

Excuse me for not replying sooner... I have been busy solving this problem, without thinking about this topic.
I did not solve this problem, but found a workaround.
In my Application.cfm, I had these settings:
  <cfcontent type="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
  <cfprocessingdirective pageencoding="iso-8859-1">
  <cftry>
    <cfset setencoding("FORM", "iso-8859-1")>
    <cfset setencoding("URL", "iso-8859-1")>
    <cfcatch></cfcatch>
  </cftry>

I now changed these to UTF-8:
  <cfcontent type="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
  <cfprocessingdirective pageencoding="UTF-8">
  <cftry>
    <cfset setencoding("FORM", "UTF-8")>
    <cfset setencoding("URL", "UTF-8")>
    <cfcatch></cfcatch>
  </cftry>

That solves the problem for inserting and updating text with one or more euro symbols.

But unfortunately, it created a new problem: when I now retrieve text from the database which was inserted/last updated before this change, all the euro symbols in that text are converted to question marks...

I have given up trying to find a sloution to this, and am just updating the text manually...

Thanx for your time anyway, points are for the both of you.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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