Allowing Mandarin Characters to be stored in SAP ASE16

[Former Member]

Hi,

I've recently taken over a project that uses SAP ASE16, and we're trying to allow Mandarin characters to be stored.

Ideally, I'd like us to convert our hefty production database server into Unicode so we can effectively use any character set, but I'm afraid of the ramifications.

What would be the professional recommendation to do here, and more importantly, what are the steps we'd need to enact to bring about this change?

Thanks,

[former_member188958]

Hi Dan,

"execute sp_helpsort" will show what your current character set and sort order are.

ASE cannot convert non-ASCII characters in your data to utf8 in-place, but can do the conversion
when inserting the data. So in general, the conversion process involves identifying any data (in all tables)
you have that contain non-ASCII characters, extracting and deleting that data from the database,
configuring ASE for the new character set, rebuilding indexes if necessary, re-inserting the data
containing non-ASCII characters.

Depending on the amounts of data involved and your own preference, for extracting data with non-ASCII
characters, you can either just bcp out entire tables or create a view that returns only the non-ASCII
data and bcp out of those views and use them to delete just those rows.

-bret

[alichtenau]

Hi Dan,

to check whether your system is Unicode or not, you can have a look at "https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/x/wwDYEw".

If your system is Non-Unicode and you would like to add Mandarin (which is traditional Chinese, language ZF) to your system, then you have to ensure that you do not reconfigure your system to a MDMP System. This is no longer possible and allowed (see "https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/x/7wDYEw").
So if only English is active then you can simply add Mandarin in report RSCPINST (add language ZF, see "https://wiki.scn.sap.com/wiki/x/r599Gg", step 1a). If another languages are active, for example German, then you cannot simply add Mandarin. Then you have to either remove the language German, which means the language can no longer be used, or convert your system to Unicode.

So, to avoid inconsistencies I would always recommend to convert the system to Unicode. Maybe you can do a copy of your production system and try a test conversion in a sandbox. This will be the best apporach. I cannot say how long it will take and how many effort you have. Maybe you can check below two pages which can provide some more information:

• How to set up a conversion Project
• Experiences from Unicode Conversions

Additional information around Unicode Conversion and I18N can be found in the official Internationalization WIKI which is linked in SAP KBA #2602070.

Cheers,
Andreas

[Former Member]

Hi Andreas, unfortunately, the question is concerning SAP ASE16, and not SAP Basis. I'm unable to see any of the interfaces/control panels you speak of.

[alichtenau]

Hi Dan,

sorry, my fault.
So it does only affect the database without a connected SAP System? In this case I'm out and you have to wait for an DB expert.

One last thing. Maybe it helps. In the "System Administration Guide: Volume 1" of SAP ASE 16.0 the Information is:
"To mix languages from different language groups you must use Unicode. If your Server character set is Unicode, you can support more than 650 languages in a single server and mix languages from any language Group."

Cheers,
Andreas

[Former Member]

Yes that's right, we've got an ASE 16 database, but it's relatively standalone (lots of applications connect to it, but no single SAP client interface). So this change would need to be focused entirely on the database ASE itself, rather than through some other SAP software.

Thanks

[alichtenau]

Hi Dan.

so your system is currently Non-Unicode? What languages and codepage do you use?


I would always recommend a conversion to Unicode. So you are prepared for future Releases/Technologies.



Cheers,
Andreas

[Former Member]

@andreas_lichtenau it's not unicode at present, I believe, though we've not ruled this out. What's the process for converting a heavy, production system into Unicode?