Can't persist accents; related to oracle charset

Question

I'm facing a problem related to the charset of a database.
When I insert a value in a table that has accents, the database persists the information, but without accents, and for some cases it persist a '?' instead some characters, like 'ã'.
Following a single test:
CREATE TABLE ACCENT_TEST (
     TEST VARCHAR(10)
INSERT INTO ACCENT_TEST (TEST) VALUES ('áéíóúçãõ');
SELECT * FROM ACCENT_TEST;
The select returns: 'aeiouc??'
If I execute that: SELECT ASCIISTR('áéíóúçãõ') FROM DUAL;
It returns: 'aeiouc??'
I think that is something related to the oracle charset.
Following below nls_database_parameters (select * from nls_database_parameters;)
NLS_LANGUAGE     AMERICAN
NLS_TERRITORY     AMERICA
NLS_CURRENCY     $
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY     AMERICA
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS     .,
NLS_CHARACTERSET     US7ASCII
NLS_CALENDAR     GREGORIAN
NLS_DATE_FORMAT     DD-MON-RR
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE     AMERICAN
NLS_SORT     BINARY
NLS_TIME_FORMAT     HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT     DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT     HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT     DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF AM TZR
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY     $
NLS_COMP     BINARY
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS     BYTE
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP     FALSE
NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET     UTF8
NLS_RDBMS_VERSION     10.2.0.4.0
Can someone help me?

Answer 1

Hello,
1. You are selecting the data to check if the accents are "persisted". That is not the correct way. use the dump() function to check the correct codes have been stored. So firstly figure out what the correct codes are for your required strings and check that with the dump() function
2. The value you see on your screen as a result of the select depends on your client NLS_LANG as well as the fonts installed on your client. E.g if the data is stored in a database with charset = A and your client environment is NLS_LANG = B, then SQL*Net converts the data in transit from A --> B. Then it is upto your client or browser to render the characters properly with the proper fonts
Thanks