(A Circumflex) character appears before every special character while doing table extracts

[pksurya]

Hello,

We have an custom extract program to provide table values to the auditors in a flat file format. We recently did a unicode conversion of our DB2 database and after the conversion we could  (A Circumflex) character appearing in front of every already existing special character. Is there a way to get rid of this character or do we know why this character appears in the extract? We don't see this character, either in documents or in underlying SAP tables.

Document:

Table:

Extract file after unicode conversion: (with  character)

Other examples with Â:

Thanks,

Surya

[Sandra_Rossi]

It looks like a conversion to UTF-8. Probably é in French text corresponds to é (Préhospitaliers, associé).

The problem with character encoding issues is that it's difficult to locate the origin. It can be the source data, or it can be any of the softwares which transfer the source data to the display.

The only way I know is to get the hexadecimal value of characters by debug, and compare them to the code pages. Well it's complex, people rarely know what character encoding is, what code pages are, what is UTF, etc.

You also have to understand how the database conversion was done (from which code page to which code page, etc.)

[kiran_k8]

Sandra,

If you have any links related to "what character encoding is, what code pages are, what is UTF, etc.",kindly share.

Thanks,

K.Kiran.

[Sandra_Rossi]

wikipedia is always a good start.