Setting the Character Set Definition

You can choose a character set definition from a list of pre-defined character sets or you can define a new character set. The pre-defined character sets are listed in the Existing Definitions dialog box that appears when you click Show Existing Definitions. Oracle Locale Builder allows you to view all the characteristics of any pre-defined character set.

You can define a new character set by modifying an existing character set or by entering all the data for a new character set. See Defining a New Character Set.

NOTE: You cannot modify a Unicode character set.

Choosing the Character Set from the Existing Definitions dialog box automatically completes the other fields in the General character set definition dialog box:

• Character Set Name: The name that Oracle Corporation assigns to a group of characters that are used for a language or group of languages. For example, WE8ISO8859P1 is the name of the Oracle character set that comprises the ISO 8859-1 Western European character set. Another example is UTF8, the Oracle name for the Unicode 2.1 UTF-8 Universal character set.
• Character Set ID: A numeric code that Oracle Corporation assigns to a character set. In the Existing Definitions dialog box, the character set ID is in parentheses after the character set name.
• ISO Character Set ID: A numeric code that is assigned to a character set by the International Organization for Standardization.
• Base Character Set ID: if you want to create a new character set by extending an existing Oracle character set, then enter the Oracle ID of the existing character set. The new character set will inherit all of the definitions from the base character set, so that you only need to add customized character set data to create the new character set.

Defining a New Non-Unicode Character Set

Each non-Unicode character set has several characteristics:

• Type specification
• Character data mapping
• Lowercase to uppercase mapping
• Uppercase to lowercase mapping
• Character classification
• Replacement characters
• Display width
• Multibyte equivalent

You can create a new character set by modifying an existing character set or by defining each characteristic. See Defining a New Character Set.

Characteristics of a Unicode Character Set

• Type specification
• Unicode character classification
• Lowercase to uppercase mapping
• Uppercase to lowercase mapping
• Replacement characters
• Display width
• Multibyte equivalent