MX Database and Application Migration Guide

Converting SQL/MP Applications to SQL/MX

Applications

HP NonStop SQL/MP to NonStop SQL/MX Database and Application Migration Guide—666211-001

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Character Sets

misinterpret string literals as delimited identifiers. For more information, see the

SQL/MX Reference Manual.

Character Sets

NonStop SQL/MP supports multiple character sets for character string literals and host

variables. However, SQL/MX supports a somewhat different collection of those

characters sets for literals and host variables:



ISO88591



UCS2 (Unicode)



KANJI



KSC5601



NCHAR (national character set)

Handling Unsupported Character Sets

When you convert a SQL/MP application to SQL/MX Release 3.0, you should have no

problems with host variable declarations for character sets that SQL/MX Release 3.0

supports. However, you must change host variable declarations for character sets not

supported by SQL/MX to declare supported character sets. Otherwise, NonStop

SQL/MX returns an error stating that the character set is not supported.

If the SQL/MP application uses a character set that NonStop SQL/MX does not

support, such as ISO88592 through ISO88599, you must change the character set

specification in the application to UCS2 or ISO88591. You must also alter the related

SQL/MP table column to use the same character set. To avoid having to alter the table,

you might reconsider converting your SQL/MP application to NonStop SQL/MX.

Updating the Character Set Specifiers

NonStop SQL/MX does not allow a space after the character set qualifier in SQL/MX

text. Remove the space after the character set qualifier, as shown in the following

example:

_UCS2'string'

Using NCHAR Host Variables and Literals

NonStop SQL/MX interprets the national character set, NCHAR, in an application to be

the default value that was set when SQL/MX Release 3.0 was installed, which is either

UCS2 (the default), ISO88591, KANJI, or KSC5601. If you convert a SQL/MP

application that has NCHAR host variables or literals that do not use the same

character set as the SQL/MX system default, errors or invalid data might result. For

example, a SQL/MP application might use Kanji as the NCHAR character set, but

NonStop SQL/MX uses UCS2 as the NCHAR character set. To avoid that problem,

carefully choose the national character set when you install SQL/MX Release 3.0 on

your system.