ENCODING Subcommand (DATA LIST command)

ENCODING specifies the encoding format of the file. The keyword is followed by an equals sign and a quoted encoding specification.

  • In Unicode mode, the default is UTF8. For more information, see SET command, UNICODE subcommand.
  • In code page mode, the default is the current locale setting. For more information, see SET command, LOCALE subcommand.
  • The quoted encoding value can be: Locale (the current locale setting), UTF8, UTF16, UTF16BE (big endian), UTF16LE (little endian), a numeric Windows code page value (for example, '1252'), or an IANA code page value (for example, 'iso8859-1' or cp1252).
  • In Unicode mode, the defined width of string variables is tripled for code page and UTF-16 text data files. Use ALTER TYPE to automatically adjust the defined width of string variables.
  • See String Formats (DATA LIST command) for information on column width specifications for string variables in UTF-8 data files.
  • If there is no FILE subcommand, the ENCODING subcommand is ignored.