Support for Unicode and DBCS data in databases

You can manipulate Unicode Standard version 3.0 data in suitably configured databases, using ESQL, in nodes that access databases through ODBC. Support for the manipulation of Unicode data is not available for nodes that access databases through JDBC.

IBM® App Connect Enterprise does not support DBCS-only columns in tables that are defined in databases; therefore, the following data types are not supported through ODBC or JDBC connections:

  • NCHAR, NVARCHAR, NVARCHAR2, NCLOB (on Oracle)
  • NCHAR, NVARCHAR, NTEXT, UNICHAR, UNIVARCHAR (on Sybase)
  • NCHAR, NVARCHAR (on Informix®)

GRAPHIC, VARGRAPHIC, LONGVARGRAPHIC, and DBCLOB data type support on DB2® is provided for App Connect Enterprise with the following limitations:

Support for Unicode is available only for the generally-supported versions of the following database managers:
  • IBM DB2 for Windows, Linux®, UNIX, and z/OS® operating systems.
  • Oracle
  • Microsoft SQL server
  • Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE)
For information about the versions of databases supported, see IBM App Connect Enterprise system requirements.

Support for the manipulation of Unicode data is not available for nodes that access databases that use JDBC; for example, DatabaseRetrieve and DatabaseRoute.

If you are using DB2:
  • On Windows, Linux, and UNIX operating systems, your database must be created with code set utf-8.
  • On all platforms, DB2 returns the lengths of strings in bytes, rather than characters; this response has implications for the behavior of string length-related ESQL functions.

    Some functions might fail, or function differently, when processed by the database. See Unicode string functions in DB2 for further information.

If you are using Oracle:
  • Your database must be created with NLS_CHARACTERSET of AL32UTF8.
  • Your ODBC data source definition must include the setting ColumnSizeAsCharacter=1.

    On UNIX and Linux platforms, this setting must be included in the appropriate stanza in the ODBC ini files.

    On Windows platforms, this string value must be added to the ODBC data source key in the registry.

    See Enabling ODBC connections to the databases for further information.

  • For 32-bit connections, you must set the variable NLS_LANG in the App Connect Enterprise environment to the value <yourlanguage>_<yourterritory>.AL32UTF8.
if you are using Microsoft SQL server:
  • You must use NCHAR, NVARCHAR, and NTEXT data types for your column definitions.
  • For App Connect Enterprise on UNIX and Linux platforms, your ODBC data source definition must include the setting ColumnSizeAsCharacter=1; this setting must be included in the appropriate stanza in the ODBC .ini files.
If you are using Sybase ASE:
  • The default character set of your ASE server must be UTF-8.
  • Your ODBC data source definition must include the settings ColumnSizeAsCharacter=1 and CharSet=UTF8.

    On UNIX and Linux platforms, this setting must be included in the appropriate stanza in the ODBC .ini files.

    On Windows platforms, this string value must be added to the ODBC data source key in the registry.

    See Enabling ODBC connections to the databases for further information.