Unicode on SQL

james · 2008-04-08

Sorry for those who keep reading my posts about Unicode (you can tell it's a focal point for me at the moment!)

But I assume that unicode is still an issue if you move from Native to SQL Server, as it will be the code pages from Navision that will interpret the data being read? i.e. Is the Unicode read correctly in SQL Server, but viewed incorrectly on the NAV client??

kine · 2008-04-08

1) NAV is using only ASCII - it means 256 chars in the database. If there is character with no. e.g. 0xAC (172 decimal), if you are using Latin 2 codepage for non-unicode application, it will be displayed as character "Č", if you are using Latin 1, it will be character "¼".

2) If you are restoring the data into SQL, I am not sure, but for me there are two ways (and I do not know which is used) but I will try to describe the one, I thing which is used:

Nav will take the data from backup, the character is saved as no. 172, Character no. 172 is send into SQL, and because in SQL you have Latin 1 as codepage in the collation, the character "¼" will be saved in the DB. If you have Latin 2 as codepage in the collation (e.g. when using windows collation Czech), the character "Č" will be saved in unicode.

3) And when you connect the NAV client to this DB, e.g. when SQL is using Latin 1, but your windows are set for Latin 2 for non-unicode applications, NAV will receive character "¼" from the SQL, but because there is no such a character in Latin 2 codepage, ? will be showed...

vanrofi · 2008-07-22

We are having similar problem here, and even going through the forum, I haven't found solution yet.

We have a 5.0 BE database where we want to add Czech company. All works fine, we have added some local reports in order to be legally compliant,...

The only thing that shows up is that the special czech charakters don't show up when typing them.

We work over Citrix for all countries, and 1 DB. We have been playing around with collation on the database (via Nav client - alter DB) but also with collation on SQL. We noticed that on a new SQL DB (not Nav) we can type and save special char, but doing the same via SQL directly in one of the NAV tables, the charakter is converted back to Normal char....

Any idea how to setup?

kine · 2008-07-22

This is common problem and there is no easy solution. Best is to have two different databases with different collation and access them through two terminal servers, one with e.g. German codepage for nonunicode apps and second with e.g. Czech codepage. In this case, you have no problem, but it cost you two terminal services (but may be with the virtualization....).

stryk · 2008-07-22

Hi!

Well, I'm not sure if that's applicaple for this issue, but there is an option to enable "Double Byte Characters" in NAV: https://mbs.microsoft.com/knowledgebase/KBDisplay.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;915374
Maybe this helps ...

ara3n · 2008-07-22

You can also try and install applocal application and use it to run applications on different codepages.

idiot · 2008-07-23

At least 3 fundamental problems still exist for Unicode for Nav SQL:

1. Save as HTML does not work with Unicode
2. Implementation for multiple Unicodes not possible using same workstation without changing Language for non-Unicode programs (restart required for each change)
3. Sometimes certain characters can never be entered directly into Nav (it becomes another character, or funny character), but the correct character will be fine in notepad, Word, etc

Unicode on SQL

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