SQL/MP Reference Manual

HP NonStop SQL/MP Reference Manual—523352-013
L-41
Considerations—LOAD

These rules govern the transfer of data across character sets. A LOAD that
violates these rules terminates with an error.
For example, if the source field character set is UNKNOWN, you can copy it to a
target field associated with any character set. If the source field character set is
one of the nine supported ISO character sets, you can copy it only to a target field
associated with that same character set.
In addition, if you load double-byte data into a single-byte field or load single-byte
data into a double-byte field, the target field must be the same length, in bytes, as
the source field.
(Enscribe-to-Enscribe loads do no field-by-field conversion, so that case is not
shown in the previous table.)

The FIRST KEY option specifies the starting point in the input table or file for a
LOAD operation. Unlike the FIRST KEY clause in the CREATE TABLE and ALTER
TABLE statements, FIRST KEY does not interpret the key value or values in terms
of the key's data type, nor does it match them with specific columns. Instead, it
accepts a series of data values and matches them byte-for-byte against the key.
Therefore, you must make sure the value or values you supply represent the
desired data in the actual key in internal SQL format. Additionally, you should
supply a complete value for each column. You can specify only a portion of the last
column in the FIRST KEY specification, but SQL uses those bytes as the leftmost
bytes, which might produce an unintended result.
Guidelines are:
Source and
Target File Types
Source Field
Character Set
Target Field
Character Set
SQL to SQL UNKNOWN Any character set
ISO88591 ISO88591
... ...
ISO88599 ISO88599
KANJI KANJI
KSC5601 KSC5601
SQL to Enscribe UNKNOWN PIC X or PIC N
ISO88591 PIC X
... ...
ISO88599 PIC X
KANJI PIC N
KSC5601 PIC N
Enscribe to SQL PIC X Any character set
PIC N Any character set