> My problem is that like so many other tools it simply uses
> DriverManager.getConnection(url, user, password) so I cannot pass
> the character set in a properties object.
>
> I vaguely remember a discussion about supporting the lc_type in the
> url to get around this problem. Did anything happen about that? I
> looked in the source and could see no tests of a character set
> passed as part of the url.

Yes, this feature is supported. Any isc_dpb_* parameter from FB API
can be passed in URL using standard notation:

jdbc:....mydb.gdb?lc_ctype=UNICODE_FSS&...

When using XML configuration files pay attention that & should be
written as &, so actually URL will look like this:

<param>
<name>url</name>
<value>jdbc:....mydb.gdb?lc_ctype=UNICODE_FSS&...</value>
</param>

Best regards,
Roman Rokytskyy