Hi Jason

Great answers. Will take your recommendation and change the whole DB to
UTF8. Seems like IBO does all the hard work for me.

p.s. Downloaded the latest IBO 5 files on Friday so should be good to go.

Thanks
Rob

On 4/06/2013 11:01 a.m., IBO Support List wrote:
> Robert,
>
> I recommend that you migrate your data into a database that has explicitly
> defined character sets for the tables and columns. I recommend that you go
> ahead and use UTF8 as the default character set and plan on using it as the
> CharSet property value when making a connection in your migrated app.
>
> I'll comment on a few of your questions below too.
>
> Jason
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: IBObjects@yahoogroups.com [mailto:IBObjects@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
> Of Robert Martin
> Sent: Monday, June 3, 2013 3:41 PM
> To: IBObjects@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [IBO] IBO 5 and Unicode
>
> Hi
>
> We are finally embarking on moving from D2007 to XE2. I have done some
> reading with regards to the issues involved in the process and am
> (overly) confidant :)
>
> However I just need to get my head around Firebird / IBO issues. Any
> comments or suggestions around the below would be great...
>
>
> 1) The new String in EX2 is Unicode (UTF16), is the .AsString parameter
> now UTF16?
>
> JW: Yes.
>
>
> 2) If the underlying database fields are defined as UTF8 does the
> .AsString automatically handle the conversion between formats?
>
> JW: Yes.
>
> 2a) Do I need to make settings changes in the component to
> allow for this?
>
> JW: No.
>
> 2c) Do I need to 'tell' IBO where a field is defined as UTF8?
>
> JW: No. I get character set data at prepare time so I know what is what.
>
>
> 3) If the underlying DB fields are 'Undefined' data type, what format
> does .AsString save the data as?
>
> JW: It doesn't do anything really. It just handles them as raw bytes.
>
>
> Currently our database characterset is not specified. We are porting to
> XE2 and don't immediately want full Unicode support. There are however a
> couple of areas, names and addresses, where we plan to change the
> underlying fields to UTF8. Our databases are already full of text that
> is in Ansi string format and our plan is / was to leave most fields as
> undefined and just specify the ones we plan to store UTF8 in.
>
> 4) I note there is a ib_connection.CharSet property that I could set to
> 'UTF8'. However if I have mixed character sets defined for my database
> this will be a problem (I assume).
>
> JW: Not necessarily.
>
>
> 5) Would I be best just to set the default character set to UTF8 and be
> done with it? I have read there might be performance and database size
> issues?
>
> JW: I am not aware of significant performance or database size issues.
>
>
> 6) If I build a new empty DB with UTF8 set as the default char format
> and I use the IB_DataPump to copy data frorm an old unspecified
> character set database will my data copy across as UTF8 (Assuming I set
> the CharSet for the destination DB to UTF8 and leave the source database
> unset (as it currently is)?
>
> JW: You should be able to migrate your data in this manner. I had a couple
> of bugs in past versions of TIB_DataPump having to do with Charset
> consideration so you will want to make sure you are at the latest version of
> IBO.
>
> 7) Is there an easy way to detect the character set of the source
> database so that the pump process correctly identifies the source DB
> character set where the source DB is already converted to UTF8?
>
> JW: IBO does a query against the database to see what its default character
> set is defined to. Also, Firebird returns charset information for individual
> columns at prepare time as well in order to handle the situations when you
> have columns defined with a charset that is different than the database
> default charset.
>
>
> Thanks
> Rob
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________
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>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> IB Objects - direct, complete, custom connectivity to Firebird or InterBase
> without the need for BDE, ODBC or any other layer.
> ___________________________________________________________________________
> http://www.ibobjects.com - your IBO community resource for Tech Info papers,
> keyword-searchable FAQ, community code contributions and more ! Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
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