How to store ® in oracle table? - oracle

Question

I need to insert value into an Oracle table
'RR® 5'?
I created a table column varchar2 data type.
But when I am displaying the data it is showing:
'RR?? 5'
Any idea, please.

Answer 1

First of all you have to check if your database runs on character encoding which supports your special characters.
Execute this query to check.
SELECT *
FROM V$NLS_PARAMETERS
WHERE PARAMETER IN ('NLS_CHARACTERSET', 'NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET');
Character sets like AL32UTF8, UTF8, WE8ISO8859P1 are able to store special characters ®.
In order to check whether your characters are supported you can run this command
SELECT
ASCIISTR(CAST(UNISTR('\00C2') AS VARCHAR2(4))) AS VARCHAR_SUPPORT,
ASCIISTR(CAST(UNISTR('\00C2') AS NVARCHAR2(4))) AS NVARCHAR_SUPPORT
FROM dual;
VARCHAR_SUPPORT NVARCHAR_SUPPORT
---------------- ------------------------
\00C2 \00C2
1 row selected.
If your result value (00C2) is equal to your input value then your characters are supported.
Suppose your database supports the characters (otherwise the game ends here)
Solution 1
Run this command from any SQL editor or from SQL*plus
INSERT INTO THE_TABLE VALUES (UNISTR('RR\00C2\00AE 5'));
Depending on your actual requirements this can be a very tedious work.
Solution 2
Use SQL*plus command. For this you have to set NLS_LANG environment variable according to code page of cmd
C:\>chcp
Active code page: 850
C:\>set NLS_LANG=.WE8PC850
C:\>sqlplus user/pwd#DB
SQL> INSERT INTO THE_TABLE VALUES ('®');
When you work on Linux/Unix the chcp equivalent is locale charmap or echo $LANG. You can also change current code page, e.g. chcp 65001 for UTF-8
Solution 3a
Create a SQL script containing the same INSERT command as above, and save it with local encoding (typically Windows CP1252, many times misnamed as ANSI)
c:\>set NLS_LANG=.WE8MSWIN1252
c:\>sqlplus user/pwd#DB #Special_Char_CP1252.sql
Solution 3b
Create a SQL script and save it with UTF-8 which is supported by most modern editors. Note: SQL scripts must not contain a BOM (Byte Order Mark), otherwise SQL*plus will raise an error. I found this tiny command line tool to add and remove BOM from arbitary text files: UTF BOM Utils
c:\>set NLS_LANG=.AL32UTF8
c:\>sqlplus user/pwd#DB #Special_Char_UTF8.sql
Note for solutions above: you can skip the set NLS_LANG command in case your registry is set accordingly. Check with this command
C:\>REM for x64 Oracle Client
c:\>reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\ /s /v NLS_LANG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ORACLE\KEY_OraClient11g_home1
NLS_LANG REG_SZ AMERICAN_SWITZERLAND.AL32UTF8
End of search: 1 match(es) found.
C:\>REM for x86 Oracle Client
c:\>reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\ORACLE\ /s /v NLS_LANG
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\ORACLE\KEY_OraClient11g_home1
NLS_LANG REG_SZ AMERICAN_SWITZERLAND.AL32UTF8
End of search: 1 match(es) found.
C:\>
Solution 4
Run your INSERT statements from a more sophisticated editor like TOAD or SQL Developer. Ensure that NLS_LANG value in Registry, resp. your system environment variable matches the file save options of the editor.
Some external resources which may help you:
Oracle documentation NLS_LANG Settings in MS-DOS Mode and Batch Mode
List of Code pages: Code page
Find a Unicode Codepoint: Codepoints