Exporting files in Unicode

Question

Hi,
I am using UTL_FILE.FOPEN_NCHAR and utl_file.PUT_line_NCHAR to write files in Unicode but instead it is exporting in UTF8 format, my database characterset is UTF8, it might be happening due to characterset.
Can i export files in Unicode rather in UTF8.
Thanks
Zubair

Answer 1

I think you must reverse the parameters it's destination first the source is optional
Regards
Etbin
Looking at 11g documentation: http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/appdev.112/e25788/u_file.htm#autoId0
FOPEN_NCHAR Function
This function opens a file in national character set mode for input or output, with the maximum line size specified. You can have a maximum of 50 files open simultaneously. With this function, you can read or write a text file in Unicode instead of in the database character set.
Even though the contents of an NVARCHAR2 buffer may be AL16UTF16 or UTF8 (depending on the national character set of the database), the contents of the file are always read and written in UTF8. <font color="blue">UTL_FILE converts between UTF8 and AL16UTF16 as necessary.</font>
I'm not sure what the last statement means (no Database at hand to try it, besides the usual procedure is not to do it row-by-row but to obtain a clob which gets written out in 32767 byte chunks)
Edited by: Etbin on 26.2.2012 9:13